We live in truly weird times. A few days ago a front-page New York Times article describes the “hellscape” of professors teaching in red states where mask requirements are not implemented (the title has been changed, presumably after generating sufficient engagement, to remove the word hellscape). I have also seen these messages bubble up: instructors pleading for students to wear masks and students not complying.
A few caveats: I’m vaccinated, I don’t mind masking myself. If I were a dictator, I’d probably first impose a vaccination mandate and then demand some constitutional democracy be instituted.
I have a harebrained theory that I suspect is about 45% correct. I suspect that many of the academics verbalizing concern about in-person and masking issues have mostly worked from home and know people that worked from home. I’m guessing that there’s a much greater diversity of pandemic experiences among the student body, especially in lower-income and redder states.
Here’s information from the Census Pulse Household Survey about “telework.” Respondents were asked: “Working from home is sometimes referred to as telework. Did any adults in this household substitute some or all of their typical in-person work for telework because of the coronavirus pandemic, including yourself?” Roughly 37% answered “yes.” Let it sink in that about 2 out of 3 did not. That is a lot of people.
Here are the relationships with stay at home work and SES.
And below is the relationship between staying at home and education
If you look very, very closely, you might notice a relationship between higher SES (income / education) and working from home.
Here’s my theory: I’m guessing a lot of academic folks have been staying at home and know lots of people who have stayed at home. I’m guessing that lots of the students, especially those at lower-income / redder schools, have either been forced to work in person themselves or have had 1+ people in their households working in person.
It must be nuts for an academic sheltering in place for 18 months to encounter someone who’s not totally on board with their preferred bundle of NPIs. And it must be nuts for students to, after 18 months of being in the in-person soup, encounter this intense fear.
Obviously, the world isn’t as precisely and perfectly subdivided by blunt social categories. Lots of variation around central tendencies. But I’d guess that we’re seeing the outcome of segregated worlds crashing back into each other.