Build Back Better: Challenges, Concerns, and COVID-19 in Canadian Education and Career Development

Abstract

This dissertation compiles works that focus on two industries during the COVID-19 pandemic: education and career development. These works address many of the pillars in the UN (2020) Research Roadmap for COVID-19 Recovery, which aims to better understand the effects of the pandemic, and how our understanding of these effects can be leveraged to build back better. This dissertation focuses specifically on how both industries experienced the shift to virtual or online services that took place during the pandemic. To explore this topic this dissertation employs a mixed method, including the use of survey research, focus groups, and statistical analyses such as logistic regression to better understand who was most affected by the realities of the pandemic. This compilation of works highlights how shifts to online or virtual service delivery amplified existing social problems and inequalities, caused strain on individual’s mental health, and offers solutions for proactively future-pandemic or crisis-proofing.