“After a while, it became a normal thing”: Swedish children’s experiences of everyday life in school during the Covid-19 pandemic

The article investigates how Swedish children (aged 8–12) with intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder describe their school-situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. A socio-ecological perspective is used to understand how the pandemic trickled down and became part of children’s everyday life. The data consists of eight qualitative interviews with children. The interviews were analysed using a grounded theory approach. Most prominent in the children’s main concerns about pandemic school life is change. The results show that although the children’s lived pandemic environment is mainly described in challenging terms, the pandemic also provided some opportunities for them – school becoming calmer, for example, or the disease restrictions providing opportunities to take a time-out.