Dislocated College Students and the Pandemic: Back Home Under Extraordinary Circumstances

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Scott S. Hall,Eva Zygmunt
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12544

S S. H  E ZBall State University

Dislocated College Students and the Pandemic:

Back Home Under Extraordinary Circumstances

Objective: This research examines college stu-

dents’ experiences of dislocation during the

COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Due to governmental

stay-at-home orders during the pandemic,

families with “dislocated” (compelled to return

home) college students would likely encounter

unique stressors while also being limited in their

normal ways of coping.

Methods: Using an online survey, the current

study sought to discover how diverse individ-

ual characteristics and family living situations

of 323 dislocated students associated with vary-

ing homelife experiences (e.g., intrusive parent-

ing, students making an extra effort to spend

time with family), and how such experiences

associated with relationship changes during the

quarantine.

Results: Analyses detected some differences

in the students’ homelife experiences based on

background and living situations, especially

related to being a rst-year student, having

been excited about returning home, and feeling

accepted by parents about being home. Negative

family relationship quality during the quaran-

tine was most predicted by negative attitudes

from students and parents about students being

home, the student feeling less adultlike (based

on treatment and own identity conception), and

having low autonomy.

Department of Early Childhood, Youth, and Family Stud-

ies, TC 605, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306

(sshall@bsu.edu).

Key Words: college students, COVID-19, family relation-

ships, family stress, pandemic, quarantine.

Conclusion: Returning home for quarantine

was challenging for most students, and circum-

stances and attitudes appeared to contribute

to how such challenges associated with family

relationship changes.

Implications: Implications for practitioners

and universities are discussed in regard to

preparing college students and their families for

similar conditions.

In March 2020, universities and colleges across

the United States began closing their campuses

in response to a growing, worldwide pan-

demic (The Entangled Group, 2020). Imposed

stay-at-home orders—commonly referred to as

a quarantine—restricted individuals’ abilities

to leave their homes for work and recreation.

These measures were implemented to slow

the spread of a novel coronavirus referred

to as SARS-CoV-2 that causes an illness

called COVID-19. Consequently, a wave of

college students were dislocated from their

chosen habitation on or near college campuses.

Undoubtedly, many would return to live with

parents under extraordinary circumstances with

relatively little time to prepare for the change.

From a life-cycle perspective (Carter &

McGoldrick, 1980), traditional college-age

students are part of a launching stage in

which parents send their young adult chil-

dren toward independent living. It is not unusual

for young adults to live with parents, par-

ticularly in times of economic downturns

(Sandberg-Thoma et al., 2015) and as part of

a gradual elongation of an emerging adult-

hood process (Arnett, 2000, 2014). Some

Family Relations 70 (July 2021): 689–704689

DOI:10.1111/fare.12544

690 Family Relations

adult children return home—sometimes refer-

enced with the term boomerang (Mitchell, 1998;

Vogl-Bauer, 2009)—often due to job loss or rela-

tionship dissolution (Arundel & Lennartz, 2017;

Kleinepier et al., 2017).

The mass return home due to the pandemic

is a boomerang developmentally, and the return

home possibly created home and family dynam-

ics unprecedented in this country. Some fami-

lies were likely impacted in unique ways due

to their individual and family characteristics and

circumstances (e.g., economic security, racial

diversity). How family relationships were ulti-

mately affected by the quarantine likely varied

based on how they coped with and adjusted to

the disruption of their more typical family pro-

cesses (Boss, 2001, 2012).

The current study sought to investigate the

homelife experiences of “dislocated college stu-

dents” who, due to campus closure, returned

to live with at least one parent during regional

stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 out-

break. To dislocate means to be “put out of

place” and “force a change in the usual status,

relationship, or order” (Miriam-Webster, 2021),

which captures important elements of the pop-

ulation of interest—students who underwent a

transition away from a chosen location, a change

that was imposed on them and their families.

Analyses focused on identifying individual char-

acteristics and family living situations (e.g., gen-

der, race, social class, rst-year student) that

associated with differing homelife experiences

(e.g., intrusive parenting, whether students took

extra effort to spend time with family), and ana-

lyzing associations of such experiences with the

nature of family relationship changes during the

quarantine. The current study was grounded in

family stress theory and in various bodies of

literature related to developmental and family

dynamics of emerging adulthood.

U, S C

Times of stress put pressure on families to

adapt to their circumstances. Family stress the-

ories typically focus on the nature of, fam-

ily perceptions of, and resources that can be

applied to respond to a stressor (Boss, 2001,

2012; Hill, 1958). The nature of each stressor

affects how challenging it might be for a fam-

ily. For example, Boss (2001) noted that contex-

tual stressors outside of the family prove espe-

cially distressing because families have little

control over them. Similarly, random or unex-

pected stressors and those with a sudden onset

are challenging because families are unable to

predict and prepare for them. Finally, stressors

with an ambiguous nature—the facts are unclear

or the end is unknown—are often considered the

most challenging due to a lack of needed clarity

that helps families make decisions.

The pandemic and quarantine produce stres-

sors that arguably share characteristics related

to families’ external contexts, resulting in the

potential for high levels of pressure on fami-

lies. Family processes often shift in attempt to

adjust to new pressures, and a lack of adequate

relational and cognitive adjustment and coping

can damage family relationships (Boss, 2001,

2012). Unfamiliar pressures from a pandemic, a

sudden dislocation, and a quarantine would thus

likely prompt uncommon family interaction in

the home.

A quarantine also can be conducive to creat-

ing family dynamics that are especially difcult

to manage, such as a loss of privacy, autonomy,

personal space, and opportunities to get a break

from family members. Shared space in a home

affects the psychological and emotional states

of family members (Graham et al., 2015), and a

lack of control over regulating privacyand space

can lead to family conict (Hawk et al., 2009).

Scholarship on overcrowded homes has indi-

cated that problems for families in such homes

arise from excessive interaction, stimulation,

and demands from each other, as well as from

diminished intimacy and alone time (Goux &

Maurin, 2005).

A family quarantined together with less

opportunity for escaping members’ attention and

inuence likely experiences these types of chal-

lenges and would be at risk for excessivetension.

The current study thus is based on the premise

that stress due to a pandemic, rapid dislocation,

and a quarantine has strong potential to impact

family patterns and processes that ultimately

inuence family relationship outcomes. Further-

more, individuals who perceive the quarantine

as more disruptive to their plans are expected to

report greater challenges at home because the

excessive disruption would put more pressure

on the family to adapt (Henry et al., 2015).

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 Q H L

Some families may be especially vulnerable to

challenges associated with the quarantine due