490 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections
of international students in higher education from Czech Republic1
Resiliência mental ou fracasso mental? Covid-19 pandemic: reexões etnográcas de
estudantes internacionais de ensino superior da República Tcheca
¿Resiliencia mental o falla mental? Pandemia Covid-19: reexiones etnográcas de estudiantes
internacionales de educación superior de la República Tcheca
Preeti Rajendran*
Abstract
This article makes a case for the existence of “Mental Resilience” in international students in the Czech Republic.
This article analyses international students and coping during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic through a mix-
ture of quantitative and qualitative approaches. A quantitative survey was utilized, conducted by Klusáček and
Kudrnáčová (2020) in the Czech Republic with college students during the rst wave of the coronavirus pande-
mic. This article then goes beyond each quantitative graph that analyses social and mental factors, drawing on
7 full-time international students stories of their voices, through ethnographic and auto ethnographic stories.
The identity of international students is anonymous except for myself as the writer. The stories here span from
the onset of high alert and borders closing in March 2020 to November 2020. From the stories of international
students, it is clear that coping during these times is varied, complex, and situational depending on multiple
individual and contextual factors, however, the stories point to an existence of “Mental Resilience” as the article
narrates coping processes.
Keywords: international students; Covid-19 pandemic; mental resilience.
Resumo
Este artigo defende a existência de “resiliência mental” em estudantes internacionais na República Tcheca. Este
artigo analisa os estudantes internacionais e o enfrentamento durante a pandemia de Covid-19 em andamento,
por meio de uma mistura de abordagens quantitativas e qualitativas. Foi utilizada uma pesquisa quantitativa,
conduzida por Klusáček e Kudrnáčová (2020) na República Tcheca, com estudantes universitários durante a pri-
meira onda da pandemia de coronavírus. Este artigo vai além de cada gráco quantitativo que analisa fatores
sociais e mentais, baseando-se em 7 histórias de vozes de estudantes internacionais em tempo integral, por
meio de histórias etnográcas e autoetnográcas. A identidade dos estudantes internacionais é anônima, exceto
eu, como escritora. As histórias abrangem desde o início do alerta máximo e o fechamento das fronteiras em
março de 2020 até novembro de 2020. A partir das histórias de estudantes internacionais, ca claro que o enfren-
* Researcher at Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Sociological Studies Charles University, Prague, Czechia. Educa-
tional Researcher, University Counselor – ALI; International Education University Guidance at Rethinking ‘Internatio-
nal’ Stories the other way around. University Counselor at UWC Mahindrea College. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-
0001-6533-2338. E-mail: preeti.rajendran@fsv.cuni.cz
Recebido em: 11/01/2021 – Aprovado em: 09/08/2021
http://dx.doi.org/10.5335/rep.v28i2.12189
491
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
tamento durante esses tempos é variado, complexo e situacional, dependendo de vários fatores individuais e
contextuais, no entanto, as histórias apontam para uma existência de “resiliência mental”, à medida que o artigo
narra os processos de enfrentamento.
Palavras-chave: estudantes internacionais; pandemia de Covid-19; resiliência mental.
Resumen
Este artículo deende la existencia de “resiliencia mental” en estudiantes internacionales en la República Checa.
Este artículo analiza a los estudiantes internacionales y cómo afrontar la pandemia Covid-19 en curso a través
de una combinación de enfoques cuantitativos y cualitativos. Se utilizó una encuesta cuantitativa, realizada por
Klusáček y Kudrnáčová (2020) en la República Checa com estudiantes universitarios durante la primera ola de la
pandemia de coronavirus. Luego, este artículo va más allá de cada gráco cuantitativo que analiza los factores
sociales y mentales, basándose en las historias de sus voces de 7 estudiantes internacionales de tiempo com-
pleto, a través de historias etnográcas y autoetnográcas. La identidad de los estudiantes internacionales es
anónima, excepto yo como escritor. Las historias aquí abarcan desde el inicio de la alerta máxima y el cierre de
fronteras en marzo de 2020 hasta noviembre de 2020. A partir de las historias de estudiantes internacionales,
está claro que afrontar estos tiempos es variado, complejo y situacional dependiendo de múltiples situaciones
individuales y contextuales. Sin embargo, las historias apuntan a la existencia de “resiliencia mental”, ya que el
artículo narra los procesos de afrontamiento.
Palabras clave: estudiantes internacionales; pandemia de Covid-19; resiliencia mental.
Introduction: Covid-19 world pandemic and the Czech Republic
The novel coronavirus, Covid-19 first appeared in Wuhan, China before the
world realized the virus was at each of their doorsteps as well, having travelled
across borders as easily as the most privileged of passport countries. Covid-19 has
thus spared no country, currently running riot in the whole world with glaringly
high numbers in the ‘free world’. The stress is on the ‘free world’ because the world
of higher education has been built on the ideas and goals of how the ‘most develo-
ped’ have set standards for what learning and higher education should look like
and how it should be recognized. But with the onset of Covid-19 the idea that our
psyche as human beings lives and learns on a spectrum of opportunity from ‘under-
developed to developed’ has been contradicted on many levels.
Covid-19 has created the realization that during this pandemic we can no
longer say that one section of the world is more ‘progressive or developed’ than
the other in the handling of this pandemic. According to the World Health Organi-
zation (WHO) (2020), more than 100 Covid-19 potential vaccines are undergoing
human trials around the world. There is hope that a successful vaccine is on the
horizon in 2021.
492 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
In the Czech Republic, the infection of Covid-19 was confirmed on March 1,
2020, with three cases. The country went into a first wave Covid-19 state of emer-
gency on March 12, 2020 and extended this state of emergency till May 17, 2020.
State of emergency meant restrictions on the free movement of people, closure
of most businesses, and all institutions and border closures. The Czech Republic
went back into the restrictive measure and state of emergency on October 5th,
2020, and is currently extended into November 2020 as it experiences a second
wave Covid-19.
Methodology
This paper analyses through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative
approaches the question, “How are international students in higher education in
the Czech Republic coping during this Covid-19 pandemic?”. This paper makes a
case for the existence of ‘Mental Resilience’ in international students in the Cze-
ch Republic. This paper draws on a quantitative survey conducted by Klusáček
and Kudrnáčová (2020) in the Czech Republic with College students during the
first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The researchers analysed possible fac-
tors impacting the mental and social well-being of students during the first wave
of Covid-19. This paper then goes beyond each quantitative graph, drawing on 7
full-time international students’ stories of their voices, through ethnographic and
autoethnographic narratives. The identity of international students is anonymous
except for myself as the writer. The stories here span from the onset of high alert
and borders closing in March 2020 to now, November 2020.
What is Ethnography?
Ethnography is one of the most relevant methods in qualitative research, and
both psychology and sociology use qualitative methods in their research (HANSON,
2008). Its characteristic methodology consists of detailed descriptions of the situa-
tions and observable behaviors. It embodies what participants say, their experiences,
attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, and reflections uttered by themselves instead of their des-
criptions of themselves. Besides the use of observation and interview as assessment
or information collection techniques, ethnography as a paradigm and psychology and
sociology as scientific disciplines have in common the fact that they do not separate
people’s behavior from the context in which it is shown (MARCÉN et al., 2013).
493
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
What is Auto-Ethnography?
In research that seeks to discover personal experience, there is a unique re-
lationship between researcher and participant, and the issue of voice arises. It
is suggested that the freedom of a researcher to speak as a player in a research
project and to mingle his or her experience with the experience of those studied is
precisely what is needed to move inquiry and knowledge further along. If a resear-
cher’s voice is omitted from a text, the writing is reduced to a mere summary and
interpretation of the works of others, with nothing new added (WALL, 2006). What
can be learned about methods in autoethnography is that it varies widely, from the
highly introspective, through more familiar approaches connected to qualitative
research, to somewhat experimental literary methods, experimental, at least, in
terms of thinking of writing as research (WALL, 2006).
The Czech Republic and Higher Education
The Czech Republic is part of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)
and Bologna Process. This means that the Czech Republic along with 48 other cou-
ntries collaborates based on free movement between staff and students to increase
employability and exchange of faculty and staff learning with the European Union
(CZECH REPUBLIC, 2020).
The Bologna Process is an interesting one, for in many ways it allows the
opportunity of all students to learn within multiple borders of the European Union.
On the other hand, there is a neoliberal side to its function (KUSHNIR, 2020). The
voice of inclusion in the midst of neoliberalist noise in the Bologna Process writes,
Ball (apud KUSHNIR, 2020), who analyses the shift in governing of higher educa-
tion, states that competitive self-ambitions are replacing collective interests and
transforming them into commercial values.
The scholar maintains that the all-devouring focus on benchmarks, tests, and audits in
higher education is undermining the professionalism of education practitioners at all levels
of education; and the author calls for the need to reignite the focus on ‘real educational
work’ which is about ethics and morals (BALL apud KUSHNIR, 2015, p. 1046).
Functioning within the framework of EHEA, the Czech Republic is home to
several good universities drawing a significant number of students for both Euro-
pean Union and non-European Union passport holders to pursue affordable, En-
glish-taught quality higher education in the context of this small Central European
494 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
country. The universities grapple and evolve within the EHEA identity drawing
international students with a definite neoliberal arc while delivering an affordable
overall valued higher education opportunity for many international students.
Under “normal circumstances” the “pre-Covid-19 era”, what I alongside many
international students that chose to study here have discovered, the study expe-
rience goes beyond the classroom right into the heart of each vibrant city within
the Czech Republic. Many times students around the world find that their univer-
sities are built outside the city centers, sometimes in areas that do not have easily
accessible public transport or proximity to big cities and airports. The beauty of
education in the Czech Republic is how the universities are part of not just the cen-
tral city architecture but intellect and learning are drawn in equal measure from
the classroom and within each city. Then under ‘normal’ circumstances the Bolog-
na process and the open borders within the EU have been valuable for students to
access learning in person beyond borders within the European Union.
However, today, with the onset of Covid-19 the world as we know it has dra-
matically changed with worldwide border shutdowns, including within the EU cou-
ntries, flights cancelled and we are seeing a slow decline in the world’s economy.
The world of education has gone from problems that often affected ‘certain sections
of the developing world’ to a worldwide contextual problem. The coping of students
in higher education has been catapulted from a primarily understood classroom-
-based learning to a massively online solo based learning experience with no cou-
ntry a ‘normal haven’. This has thrown the thought process of learning into new,
large-scale, unprecedented territories. This has also created the question of ‘Are
online classes at the same cost of in-person classes a fair charge’?
Mental resilience or mental ascos
Here in the Czech Republic, confusion, disbelief, fear, adaptability, resilience,
acceptance, at ease are some of the many emotions tied to the onset of the pan-
demic chaos and the continued months into seeing no concrete sign of success in
eradicating the repercussions of this pandemic.
“Should we stay or should we go?” was on the mind of international students here
in the Czech Republic when the pandemic grabbed the world. The reflections in this
paper generate thoughts on the coping precarity of the international student as Third
Country Nationals in the Czech Republic. According to the Ministry of the Interior
of the Czech Republic - MOI, a Third Country National is defined as a citizen of a
495
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
state that is not a member of the EU nor a citizen of Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway or
Switzerland (CZECH REPUBLIC, 2020). Something to note is that students as ‘Third
Country Nationals’ in the Czech Republic have to renew their student visa every year.
A survey was conducted by (KLUSÁČEK; KUDRNÁČOVÁ, 2020) on “Colle-
ge students during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic”. The survey and
graphs have been translated from Czech to English using Google Translate. Their
research spanned 28 April to 19 May 2020 through online data which provided
insight into students and mental health here in the Czech Republic. Students from
7 universities in the Czech Republic were involved in contributing to online data.
The researchers Klusáček and Kudrnáčová (2020) examined the physical, mental,
and social well-being of students. The pandemic in the Czech Republic during the
period of the hardest measures was psychologically stressful.
The Graph 1 shows the sum index of the eight items of the Depression Scale from
the European Social Research – ESS (feeling sad, frustrated, anxious, isolated…). The
authors of the research compared the latest available data of the Czech general po-
pulation (ESS 7, 2014) with newly collected data concerning university students. Stu-
dents appear to have been more prone to depression on average between late April and
early May 2020 than the general population under normal circumstances.
Graph 1 – The sum index of the eight items of the Depression Scale from the European Social Research – ESS
Research source: (KLUSÁČEK; KUDRNÁČOVÁ, 2020).
Graph 1 translation Czech to English. Procenta = Percent.
496 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
Student story 1: a student from India (Masters program)
I always wanted to go abroad to pursue my masters. I opted for Prague for my
masters for the fact that it is a very beautiful city and the benefits students get to
study in EU countries. I arrived on 1st October with lots of hope and excitement for
my new beginnings. From October till February, everything was going so smoothly.
My classes were going well, I was enjoying the interactions with my professors,
going out for trips with my friends, and tasting all the delicious European cuisines.
But as they say, every good thing comes to an end, around March the first case
of Covid was detected in the Czech Republic. I was a bit frightened, knowing the
seriousness of this virus, I consequently, started to take necessary precautions. I
went and bought 2 liters of sanitizer and sanitized my room. Soon the cases began
to rise and the Czech government was planning for a lockdown. I remember vivi-
dly, the government announcing lockdown, I rushed to the grocery store to stock
up. I wasn’t surprised to see that the store was packed with people, making it
heavily crowded. It was a total frenzy. I bought all the stuff and arrived back at
my apartment. Then my father contacted me from India telling me to come back
home immediately, he had already booked a ticket to India. Alas! all my efforts to
store up groceries went in vain. But, I was excited to go back to my parents during
this difficult time. Since the cases were spiking, all the universities in the Czech
Republic announced that the classes would be online. So I left for India. I returned
to Prague on 12th June, and I remember my arrival at Prague airport where the
concerned authorities were strictly checking the Covid test of all the incoming in-
ternational passengers. Luckily, I had a slip which I showed them indicating my
Covid negative status. I booked a cab and went to my apartment where I did a
strict 14 day quarantine. During this time, the cases reported in the Czech Repu-
blic were very low. After a few days, the Czech government eased the restrictions,
and to mark how well they had fought the pandemic, the government announced
that they would do a feast for the public on Charles bridge with a 500- meter long
table and 2,000 guests. However, the same week Prague reported many new Covid
cases. People seemed to be going back to ‘normal’. During this time, I was also
facing other problems with which I couldn’t cope, and because of which I had lots
of depression and anxiety. Subsequently, I started taking online counselling. From
June to August, my days were the worst. I started consuming alcohol more than
usual. I had no idea what was going around me. It was the worst nightmare I had
ever got but in real life, far from my family. Fortunately, during this time only one
497
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
good thing happened to me, and that was I found another new apartment in the
city center with an amazing owner. My previous apartment was not good and a
little gloomy and the owner was also not very welcoming. I love my new cozy apart-
ment. It was also close to an amazing friend. While my anxiety and sadness were
growing it was my friend close by and my online counsellor that kept me sane. But
I desperately wanted to go back to India now as my mental health was not getting
better. My student visa was going to expire on 20th October and I had to apply for
my renewal as it’s advised in the Czech Republic to apply for it 2 months before
to the expiry. It was already the 1st week of September. But thank goodness, I got
the help of a visa agent to quickly reapply for a visa. He arranged everything and
my visa process started on time. While waiting for my visa, I got the news of my
grandmother’s death. This made me even more desperate to go back to India. To
get my visa fast so I can go back and be with my family in India.
‘S’ is still currently waiting on the renewal of her Czech student visa before
she can head to India.
Student story 2: a student from Chile (Masters program)
I first met ‘P’ in the university corridor of the university building both our
departments shared. This was a month before the pandemic hit. We had exchan-
ged numbers feeling a quick sense of camaraderie when we mutually laughed in
delight at a poster on the department bulletin board. I do not remember now what
that poster was advertising, but it started the two of us dialoguing. We exchanged
phone numbers to meet up for coffee and we did manage to meet once, but then
the Czech Republic went on a strict lockdown. Since then we have kept in touch
online. ‘P’ She volunteered to share her experiences over time from the onset of the
pandemic to now. ‘P’ and we had an online Google Meet hangout as she reflected
on her life here personally within the framework of being an international student.
She told me it was tough when the pandemic hit, she juggled a personal life back
home in Chile with an ailing parent, while living here alone in the Czech Republic.
She has a Croatian passport which allows her flexibility within the EU, but home
is very much Chile and the affordability of an EU passport was rendered a bit use-
less when the Czech Republic went on lockdown since it seemed at the time that
the Czech Republic was doing better than some western European countries. So
she stayed at home. But the stress of the pandemic was anxiety-inducing for her
as not only was part of her family in Chile, part of her family was in the USA. The
498 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
pressure of her university study then was too much to handle and she decided to
take the semester off. Over time the pandemic was not getting better as the world
continued to be glaringly suffering from online news. ‘P’ said she has been seeing a
therapist and is currently on prescription medication to help deal with her stress
and anxiety and she is doing ‘okay’.
Quantitative survey continued: Klusáček and Kudrnáčová (2020) researchers
also measured loneliness using the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
loneliness scale, 37.5% of college students felt lonely (scores 8 to 12).
Graph 2 – The scores of the three-item scale of loneliness UCLA (3 = does not feel lonely at all, 12 = feels
very lonely)
Research source: (KLUSÁČEK; KUDRNÁČOVÁ, 2020).
Graph 2 translation Czech to English. Osamělost = Loneliness.
Student story 3: a student from the United States of America (Ph.D. program)
‘L’, an African-American studying in the Czech Republic reflected on his life
as a student during the pandemic. For a self-identified introvert who loves to
spend more time alone than with a group of people, ‘L’ initially proclaimed that the
lockdown in Prague suited him well. He did not have to force himself to interact
with people. He told me he could spend all the time he wanted in his apartment,
blogging, reflecting, collecting research for his dissertation through online conver-
sations with people and he was not forced to have in-person conversations with
499
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
people unless he needed to. As the weeks turned into months, his forced isolation
started to wear him down a bit. He wondered about ‘home’. But he said to me:
I think in a nutshell , it makes the isolation you already feel, a little more here in the Czech Re-
public. Everyone is wary of strangers these days, and when you’re different... in a way it makes
international students and expats closer than ever. And if ‘home’ was better (you know what I
mean) then it might be easier. ‘Home’ as you know is not a ‘better place’, especially right now.
So, I am choosing to look at all this time on my hands to ‘get sh**t done.
Quantitative survey continued, Klusáček and Kudrnáčová (2020), the resear-
chers, also tried to map the financial situation of university students before the
outbreak of the coronavirus crisis (before restrictions and lockdown set in) and
during it in early May. They found that financial problems did increase from 4.2%
to 14.8%, decreasing financial security in the students.
Graph 3 – To what extent do you agree with the following statement? “I had sufficient funds to cover my
monthly expenses”
Research source: (KLUSÁČEK; KUDRNÁČOVÁ, 2020).
Graph 3 translation Czech to English. Rozhodně souhlasí= Strongly agree; Souhlasí = Agree; Ani souhlas, ani nesouhlas = Neither
agree nor disagree; Nesouhlas = Disagree; Rozhodně nesouhlas = Strongly disagree.
500 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
Student story 4: a student from Brazil (Ph.D. program)
I’m ‘J’. I’m a Ph.D. student at Charles University in Prague. My current pro-
ject examines the lives and experiences of football and futsal migrant athletes
in Central and Eastern Europe. When the Covid-19 pandemic reached the Czech
Republic, I had just moved into a permanent place in Krakow. I was planning on
doing fieldwork in Poland, and taking courses at the Jagiellonian University. My
life in Poland up until that moment was living in a hostel [I can’t remember the
name of it, but it was super central], going to courses, planning fieldwork, organi-
zing my attempt to publish. I guess I made my research project more interesting
to me in this way, I “follow” sports migrants, and used academic mobility periods
to answer my research questions. While I could have stayed in Poland when the
classes switched to an online mode, some friends told me to come back to the Czech
Republic because the borders were going to close. So I arranged everything with
the landlady. She was kind enough to return the rent I had paid her. I guess we’re
talking about March 2020. It was the most troublesome period. I was thinking
about coming back to my home country. I started feeling a lot of anxiety about my
mother. She lives alone, and I guess that was a critical moment for me. She raised
me as a single mother, and there is always this feeling that I will come back to take
care of her when she gets older. Surprisingly, my mom reacted most calmly, and
she did help me going through these moments. I remember I started to drink a lot
at this point, and I was not the most motivated student to finish with the courses
in Krakow. Slowly, I came back to “myself”, my supervisor just gave me a lot of
advice via email. I used the first wave of Covid-19 to look for more data online, and
I managed to write the remaining two chapters of my thesis. But I guess framing
things in this way, “I managed”… is unrealistic. I could “manage” because I recei-
ved the rent money in Poland back, that gave me some money to get by, I have a
steady source of income, my project is funded, I can study from home, and I still
have a deadline to finish a thesis. Now that we see a second wave, I confess I feel a
lot more pessimistic about “the future”. Maybe my pessimism will eventually fade
away when a vaccine is out there. I certainly hope so.
Quantitative survey continued: Klusáček and Kudrnáčová (2020), the resear-
chers continued to study ‘study load and stress’ possibly created by the difficulty of
meeting students and professors after the onset of the pandemic and when full-ti-
me teaching was disrupted at universities. It was found that there was an increase
of 4.5 hours per week during the pandemic of teaching hours and, to a bigger ex-
tent, personal study time was increased to 7.8 hours per week.
501
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
Graph 4 – “How many hours did you normally spend on teaching, personal study, and paid work?”
Research source: (KLUSÁČEK; KUDRNÁČOVÁ, 2020).
Graph 4 translation Czech to English. Týdenní hodinová dotace = Hours weekly; Kdy = When; Před pandemií = Before pandemic;
během pandemie = After pandemic; Počet hodin týdně = Average weekly hours; Prezenční výuka = Offline courses; Práce = Paid
job; Osobní studium = Personal study time; Online výuka = online courses.
Student story 5: a student from China (Masters program)
‘N’ reflected on her experiences here once the Czech Republic went on lockdo-
wn. She said:
My personal opinion , especially as an international here, we don’t have much contact with
others other than our schoolmates, so we feel alone and lonely often when we are restricted to
our housing. Online courses are not as efficient especially to us social sciences students, due
to a lack of face-to-face discussion. Recreational life has been greatly impacted too so most of
the time I am just confined to my dorm room and my income has decreased. I speak for several
international students who have experienced the same as me and have lost part-time jobs or
have fewer opportunities. As far as I know, quite a few international students are struggling
with depression. I don’t feel different as a student here bcz of my nationality (I do get asked
questions about the communist regime and some stereotyped Chinese society tho). but about
studying here I feel it’s way more like living/studying in Prague than studying at my university.
The integration and interaction among faculties are insufficient and bcz of some other reasons
too, I don’t feel the school spirit. and to know non-schoolmate ppl is even easier than to have
connections with students from other faculties.
502 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
Quantitative survey continued: Klusáček and Kudrnáčová (2020), researchers
also found a marked difference between university faculties in their approach to
dealing with the disruptions in regular teaching styles. This played a part in how
students dealt with the perceived level of study load and stress. There was the pos-
sibility that with the lack of coordination and clarity in teaching delivery, students
created their versions of study time and keeping up with class content on their
own and is seen in Graph 05 when the students indicated a progressive increase
in study load stress which was similar to the rise in stress during the pandemic.
Graph 5 – Averages of perceived study load and stress according to the difference in the length of personal
study before and during the pandemic (in hours)
Research source: (KLUSÁČEK; KUDRNÁČOVÁ, 2020).
Graph 5 Czech to English translation. Průměry pociťovaného zatížení = Average perceived load; Průměry pociťovaného stresu =
Average perceived stress.
503
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
Student story 6: a student from Indonesia (Ph.D. program)
A student from Indonesia, ‘R’ studying in the Czech Republic was content
thinking of remaining in the country while waiting out the pandemic. But he did
periodically worry about his aging mother back in Indonesia and the lack of proper
family support for her. He said he was quite content with having online classes
here and was keeping busy. Most recently, with several months passing by with no
sign of the pandemic getting better with Europe’s second wave, ‘R’ tells me:
I am now thinking of going back to Indonesia, collecting my research within Indonesia, and
being with family, and then we’ll see. I can’t bear the idea of spending Christmas here with
everything closed and restrictions on meeting people, it would be sad. I am better off being at
home. I can’t concentrate on my research and online classes here. I plan to go to Indonesia
before Christmas and come back in March.
A few days later ‘R’ called me to tell me he found out his research stipend
will not be enough to cover his expenses in fieldwork in Indonesia and with the
economy the way it is, he is unsure how best to navigate staying in the Czech
Republic or going back to Indonesia. ‘R’ is also waiting on the renewal of his Czech
student visa feeling uncomfortable about leaving on a temporary short-term visa
for Indonesia with the current unreliable rules of borders opening and closing but
also keeping in mind how best to collect data for his research project from within
Indonesia.
Quantitative survey continued: Klusáček and Kudrnáčová (2020), the resear-
chers also found that university faculties that had the could go straight into online
teaching created a scenario where students were more at ease and indicated lesser
extended study periods and lower study stress as indicated in Graph 06.
504 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
Graph 6 – Averages of perceived study load and stress according to the ratio of the increase in online tea-
ching and persola study before and during the Covid-19 pandemic
Research source: (KLUSÁČEK; KUDRNÁČOVÁ, 2020).
Graph 6 translation Czech to English translation. Průměry pociťované zátěže = Average perceived load; Průměry pociťovaného
stresu = Average perceived stress.
The quantitative survey above indicates, the general student well-being wi-
thin the students who participated in the Czech Republic did show a marked de-
crease overall in multiple areas.
Student story 7: (author) this is my story so far (Ph.D. program)
My passport is from India, I was born in Papua New Guinea and I am here in
the Czech Republic researching higher education migration from Asia, Latin Ame-
rica, and Africa to what was historically Czechoslovakia while looking at current
higher education migrations to the Czech Republic. The year 2019-2020 seemed
like a regular start to any new academic year for all students involved. I joined the
many students in the Prague Czech Republic in October 2019 a few short months
before the pandemic took hold of the world and the Czech Republic went on lock-
down.
505
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
For an international student who grew up in a developing context that was
postcolonial and widely ‘English speaking’, being a newcomer to a primarily Czech
speaking country where English is a second language was exciting and a challen-
ging welcome. As I think back to a few months before the pandemic hit the Czech
Republic, some several interesting thoughts and emotions made up my experience:
1. The excitement of learning a new language;
2. The confusion of buying groceries where the language is not ‘English’;
3. The navigation around the city trying to learn the different trains, trams,
metros, and districts or city locations and pronouncing Czech names of va-
rious destinations within the Czech Republic;
4. Navigating the immigration government offices where the information was
primarily in Czech though English translations were available if a student
learned where to look and there was extra excitement if the immigration
officer spoke English;
5. Classroom education was in Czech and English and it was fun.
So, the joys of new experiences, confusion in language translation, and con-
tinued learned resilience seemed like a ‘normal’ cross-cultural experience to have
overall with its ups and downs within any new country. My mental state was
‘normal’ with the stresses and excitements of the new cross-cultural experiences.
Then came the pandemic, borders shut down and utter confusion around the world
started. I had just planned a trip to do some Ph.D. research in Ecuador in March
2020. Just before I was to fly out, Ecuador shut their borders and the Czech Repu-
blic followed. It’s November 2020 now and my visa has expired for Ecuador. The
Czech Republic is going through a second wave of Covid, more severe this time
and we are back on restrictions. Like me, many students have had to halt their
fieldwork data collection. It has been easier for me as I am using ‘Ethnography’
and can interview people online. However, the pandemic has created a different
context within the Czech Republic that will influence how my higher education
migration research will be narrated. In terms of my personal life, I miss my family
in India and we stay connected through online channels regularly. We hear there
might be a positive outcome for a vaccine in the next few months, but at this point,
everything around the world is still in the ‘new normal chaos’. When I was asked to
consider writing a paper on Education and Health, I knew an ethnography in the
Czech Republic, my current residence would work best. This paper would not have
506 ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Preeti Rajendran
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
been possible without access to the internet to reach out to each of the full-time
international students like me, living during this pandemic in the Czech Republic.
Analysis
In “Covid-19, higher education and the impact on society: what we know so
far and what could happen”, (HUGHES, 2020) points out that right now, Covid-19
is threatening the cohesiveness of human relationships: lockdowns are creating
a fractured world of isolated individuals experiencing fewer opportunities to con-
gregate than ever before. “The consequences could be dramatic, exacerbating the
type of atomized society that the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim warned
against” (HUGHES, 2020, p. 1).
While the world is reeling from outbreaks of the Covid-19 pandemic with the
ongoing infection rate, it is practical to say that even post-Covid-19 our world has
taken a massive shift in every possible way conceivable. It is not possible to fully
comprehend and understand right now how and what will get affected long term
once a successful vaccine to combat Covid-19 is discovered. However, keeping in
mind the mental pressures and push toward more isolated living, this paper hoped
to understand if a case could be made that shows there is mental resilience in the
face of coping as an international student from overseas living in the Czech Repu-
blic during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The world is full of adaptable human beings making up ways to cope in little
and big ways to keep surviving, evolving, while at the same time the pandemic is
forcing the world to re-think and re-develop. From the stories of international stu-
dents, it is clear that coping during these times is varied, complex, and situational
depending on multiple individual and contextual factors. While certain references
can be drawn from the fact that all student narratives depicted here deal with
incredible themes of loneliness, anxiety, stress, and a lack of in-person community,
the international student narratives indicate resilience, the ability to function,
think, plan and reach for available resources.
We cannot forget that neoliberal frameworks of higher education have for the
sake of large monetary gains, allowed access to education for international stu-
dents from overseas. What this points to is an inner resilience within an interna-
tional student to leave their sense of comfort and community in one country for a
further desirable education and opportunity in another country and institution. In
the international student stories above, 4 out of 7 students are continuing to stay
507
ESPAÇO PEDAGÓGICO
Este artigo está licenciado com a licença: Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional.
Mental resilience or mental asco? Covid-19 pandemic: ethnographic reections of international students in higher education from...
v. 28, n. 2, Passo Fundo, p. 490-507, maio/ago. 2021 | Disponível em www.upf.br/seer/index.php/rep
in the Czech Republic during this pandemic, far from their passport country and
family. So when faced with a pandemic of this magnitude, international students
already have resources in place to allow survival within new places or pandemic
isolation for a long time.
Nota
1 is work was supported by the grant SVV 260 596.
References
CZECH REPUBLIC. Ministry of the Interior. Third-country nationals - Ministry of the interior
of the Czech Republic. 2020. Available in: Https://Www.Mvcr.Cz/Mvcren/Article/Third-Country-
-Nationals-Third-Country-Nationals.Aspx. https://www.mvcr.cz/mvcren/article/third-country-
-nationals-third-country-nationals.aspx. Accessed on: Oct. 20, 2020.
HANSON, B. Wither qualitative/quantitative: Grounds for methodological convergence. Qua-
lity & Quantity, v. 42, p. 97-111, 2008.
HUGHES, Conrad. Covid-19, higher education and the impact on society: what we know so far
and what could happen. Future of Work, World Economic Forum, 2020. Available in: https://www.
weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/covid-19-higher-education-and-the-impact-on-society-what-we-know-
-so-far-and-what-could-happen/. Accessed on: Nov. 03, 2020.
KLUSÁČEK, J.; KUDRNÁČOVÁ, M. Vysokoškolští studenti během první vlny pandemie koro-
naviru. Sociologický Ústav, AV ČR, v. v. i. 2020. Available in: https://www.soc.cas.cz/aktualita/
vysokoskolsti-studenti-behem-prvni-vlny-pandemie-koronaviru. Accessed: Sep. 24, 2020.
KUSHNIR, I. The voice of inclusion in the midst of neoliberalist noise in the Bologna Process.
European Educational Research Journal, v. 19, n. 6, p. 485-505, 2020.
MARCÉN, Celia et al. Ethnography as a Linking Method between Psychology and Sociology:
Research Design. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, v. 82, p. 760-763, 2013.
WALL, Sarah. An Autoethnography on Learning About Autoethnography. International Jour-
nal of Qualitative Methods, v. 5, n. 2, p. 146-160, 2006.
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM. Covid-19, higher education, and the impact on society. Availa-
ble in: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/covid-19-higher-education-and-the-impact-on-
-society-what-we-know-so-far-and-what-could-happen/. Accessed on: Nov. 03, 2020.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION. The push for a Covid-19 vaccine, 2020. Available in: ht-
tps://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/covid-19-vaccines. Accessed on:
Nov. 10, 2020.
