Cross-National Variation in School Reopening Measures during the COVID-19 Pandemic

To contain the initial spread of the SARS-CoV2 virus and the COVID-19 disease, many countries opted to close schools. However, the importance of schooling to mitigate inequalities motivated many economies to reopen schools after having formulated various COVID-19 mitigation and containment strategies. Using an exploratory sequential mixed method design, we explore the measures undertaken by countries when reopening schools and how these measures varied cross-nationally. We find that countries formulated a wide range of school reopening measures (total: 243) to mitigate the spread of the virus in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. From a policy diffusion theoretical perspective, findings from our statistical analysis suggest that cross-national diversity in policies are related to both internal and external country factors such as peer emulation mechanisms, income, and past pandemic.  Covers 3/2020 – 7/2020 (Second quarter of 2020).