Southborough resident Kaela Dunne studied how families were affected by pandemic in summer research project
Dunne is a senior sociology major at Hamilton College
Clinton, NY (08/27/2021) — Continuing a project that began in 2020, Southborough resident and Hamilton College senior Kaela Dunne worked this summer with Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology Mahala Stewart and three other students to learn how families have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dunne and the other students interviewed local parents, mostly mothers, to better understand how their lives and households have changed over the course of the past year. The research was supported by the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center at Hamilton.
The culmination of the project will be a group presentation, which will accompany independent papers written by the four students. Topics include parents in the pandemic workplace, relating the social implications of natural disasters to those of COVID, and intersectionality.
The interviewees were mostly working- and middle-class white families whose experiences navigating at-home school and childcare provide the basis for the student researchers to pursue their independent projects. They compiled a shared database of interviews, online articles, and other relevant resources, keeping in touch with each other throughout the study.
This "independent teamwork," Dunne said, helped her and the others - who represent different class years and levels of experience with research - to "focus on the areas we need to grow." Professor Stewart's role, Dunne added, was to guide weekly team meetings and assist with the research and interview process in general, drawing on her time in college and the field of sociology. "Having that sort of mentor, with lots of research experience, is great to give everybody a sense of the next steps or answer questions," said Dunne, who majors in sociology at Hamilton.
The project began with Stewart herself, who interviewed a number of families last summer and winter. After sending out a survey to gauge interest, the four students were able to determine which families to follow up with this summer
Along with asking about the pandemic, the team touched on race in their conversations with parents, in an attempt to understand how they are speaking with their children about the subject.
Kaela Dunne is a graduate of St. Mark's School
Originally founded in 1793 as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy, Hamilton College offers an open curriculum that gives students the freedom to shape their own liberal arts education within a research- and writing-intensive framework. Hamilton enrolls 1,850 students from 49 states and 49 countries. Additional information about the college can be found at www.hamilton.edu.
###
Media Attachments
Southborough resident Kaela Dunne, second row on right, was among a group of Hamilton College students who researched how families have been affected by the COVID pandemic.