Invisible pedagogies in home education: Freedom, power and control

Home-schooling, or ‘elective home education’ (EHE) as it is more commonly known in the UK, invites contestation and controversies. Drawing on a UK-wide study of 242 families this paper explores a collection of EHE pedagogic practices within the socially situated contexts of doing everyday life. Through an application of Bernsteinian ideas, the findings surface some of the ways in which invisible pedagogies afforded children greater autonomy over the sequence and pace over their learning. It also considers how community development has helped some parents to harness the forms of capital which extend and remake new structures to strengthen the transmission of their social values. Contrary to the messages of EHE advocates, it shows that approaches inspired by unschooling are not devoid of power and control altogether. In considering the experiences of children and young people, the findings highlight the relative challenges and opportunities of transitioning from invisible pedagogies to formal qualifications in a context where access to public examinations can be difficult to achieve. Considering the tensions that these pedagogies reveal in the socialisation towards individualism, the author suggests solutions for questioning, challenging and bridging divides.

Getting a risk-free trial during COVID: Accidental and deliberate home educators, responsibilisation and the growing population of children being educated outside of school

Numbers coming out of education departments in Australia suggest that, even though most Australian schools are open, and families are able to send their children to them, increasing numbers of parents are deciding to keep their children at home for their education (Queensland Government: Department of Education, 2020). It may be that, as the president of Australia’s home education representative body stated during the pandemic, Covid school closures offered a “risk-free trial” of home education (Lever, 2020) by providing an a-posteriori experience of education outside of schools. Building on the Covid experiences, this paper suggests that ‘accidentally falling into’ home education may be significant in understanding parents’ home education choices. Using numbers of home educators from Australia, and the associated data on their location and ages, this paper argues responsibilisation (see Doherty & Dooley, 2018) provides a suitable lens to examine how parents may decide, after an a-posteriori experience such as Covid school closures and previous, often negative, experiences of schooling, to home educate in the medium to long term. This paper proposes that increasing numbers of home educators will be seen in various jurisdictions where families perceive themselves responsibilised to home educate due to Covid as an a-posteriori experiences of home education. The paper proposes these families are ‘accidental’ home educators (English, 2021). By contrast, much more stable is the ‘deliberate’ home education population, those whose choices are based in a-priori beliefs about schooling. The paper proposes that the accidental home education category may be better able to explain the growing numbers of home educators in Australia and across the world, providing a means for governments to respond to the needs of this cohort, and the policies required to manage this population.

The experience of adults who were “unschooled” during their youth: A phenomenological approach

To better understand the experience of unschooling, non-directive in-depth interviews with five Quebec adults who had experienced it were conducted according to a phenomenological approach, revealing their perceptions of their educational experiences and their families, as well as their views of the world. Certain aspects of the testimonies corroborate the results of previous studies concerning self-directed learning, use of information technology, development of interests, and participation in a support group; others reveal limits when it comes to learning perseverance, pursuit of complex learning goals, school integration, and evaluation. The participants also spoke of family conflicts, parental control, negligence, and the influence of this experience on their views of society, work, the school system, and the role of government in education.

The gift of homeschooling: Adult homeschool graduates and their parents conceptualize homeschooling in North Carolina

Although still a marginalized practice, homeschooling is on the rise internationally and across socio-economic groups. Moreover, the current Covid-19 pandemic has shifted additional attention to homeschooling. However, much of the available research is primarily concerned with the current day-to-day practice of homeschooling and little attention is paid to adult homeschool graduates. This exploratory study, based on qualitative interviews with mothers and adult children from 12 families, examines young adults’ overall evaluation of their past homeschooling experience and aims to understand how parents and children view the pros and cons of homeschooling in hindsight. The data analysis revealed that homeschoolers approach education more broadly than focusing strictly on the academic side and it identified the common theme of “gifting,” which challenges the prevailing conceptualization that homeschooling is a “sacrifice.” Respondents viewed their homeschooling experience as a mutually beneficial process of giving and receiving rather than a unidirectional act of “sacrifice.”

Should educators promote homeschooling? Worldwide growth and learner outcomes

The purpose is to briefly summarize forty years of research on the learner outcomes of the modern homeschooling movement and address whether educators should be promoting home education. Studies show that homeschooling (home education) is generally associated with positive learner outcomes. On average, the home educated perform better than their institutional school peers in terms of academic achievement, social, emotional, and psychological development, and success into adulthood (including university). Certain pedagogical and familial elements that are systemic to freely chosen parent-led home-based private education homeschooling are may be the keys to the overall better performance and development of most children – not only the home educated – and into their lives as adults. If this is true, should professional educators be promoting homeschooling rather than criticizing it or trying to inhibit its growth? Are there certain categories of families for whom home education would not be a good idea? Is home education a pedagogical choice and approach about which educators should be skeptical and antagonistic or from which they can learn, be better informed about the needs and successes of students, and support according to the findings of empirical evidence?

Remote home-based education as a new phenomenon in the time of the covid-19 pandemic – the experience of Czech families

In March 2020 a state of emergency was declared in the Czech Republic in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which that resulted in the closures of schools. The provision of education continued through mandatory remote home-based education. The aim of this study is to use in-depth interviews to show how Czech families with children at the primary levels of education have coped with this situation. Based on a qualitative analysis, it is possible to state that the families who participated in the research were coping well with the situation and had come up with effective arrangements both for providing education and for fulfilling other responsibilities. The research also revealed that many families consider this to be very demanding time. At the same time, we identified that the way how families tackled the situation of home-based education depended on several factors. The key role was played by the school factor, namely the quality of remote education offered by school and the communication between the school and the parents. The analysis showed that although the quality of communication and remote education offered by school improved between spring 2020 and autumn 2020, schools still have much room to improve the education provided.

Hybrid homeschools: Organization, regulatory environments and reactions to COVID-19

This study reports the results of a survey conducted with a set of “hybrid homeschool” leaders (principals or directors) from around the United States who were asked to describe 1. how their families categorize themselves (as homeschoolers, or as members of private schools), 2. the ways in which their schools operate in terms of scheduling, hiring, etc., 3. how their schools are regulated in the various states, and how they work within those regulatory frameworks, and 4. how they were affected by COVID-19, both in the spring of 2020 and the fall of 2020. Respondents provided a variety of names to describe their schools and a split in how families see themselves. In terms of staffing, schedules, tuition, and similar issues, the schools provide several arrangements, within some consistent constraints. Respondents noted a variety of regulatory situations in their respective states, but none felt over-burdened. Neither did any respondents point out particular problems that required regulatory relief. Regarding COVID-19, most schools reported feeling much less disruption compared to nearby conventional (5-day per week) schools.