Home education as a provocation for the future of education

We all are called to engage in a dialogue based on two fundamental principles: the right to quality education throughout life, and education as a public endeavour and a common good.

Home education is a form of educational provision alternative to conventional schooling that might be seen as diametrically opposed to the UNESCO’s (2021) vision of a shared and public education for all. Simultaneously, the report seems to convey the idea of co-construction of the future of education. Everyone, state and non-state actors, is entitled to a voice.

In my paper (Chinazzi, 2023), I have explored the extent to which home education is a challenge or a provocation to UNESCO’s vision.

A polarised public controversy surrounds home education. For some critics, it potentially holds children back from becoming responsible and agentic members of society (see Apple, 2000; Bartholet, 2019; Lubienski, 2000, 2003). On the other hand, the empirical scholarship broadly supports the idea that home-educated students acquire social, emotional and inter-personal skills and academic outcomes equivalent to or even ‘better’ than their schooled peers (see Medlin, 2013; Pearlman-Avnion and Grayevsky, 2019; Ray, 2013; Tweni et al., 2022; and Unger Madar and BenDavid-Hadar, 2022). 

However, it is noteworthy that evaluating the variety of social and academic ‘outcomes’ of home education is challenging. Standardised measures of attainment are not reliable assessment tools because of the bespoke and informal nature of curricula, methods of ‘teaching’ and learning associated with home education. In addition, due to the lack of representative data, it is problematic to generalise small-scale qualitative research findings.

Furthermore, home-educating families within and across national and international contexts, are not a homogenous group in terms of demographics, motivations and practices. Rather, home education encompasses a broad spectrum of educational philosophies, methods, curricula, styles and approaches (Fensham-Smith, 2020). For these reasons, it is not possible to determine whether home-schooling is either intrinsically ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than conventional schooling, as similarly argued by other scholars (Dwyer and Peters, 2019; Fensham-Smith, 2021; Neuman and Guterman, 2016; and Pattison, 2015).

Research on home education should serve a different purpose: to shed light on the growing discrepancies between the school system and families’ expectations In recent years, the shifting landscape of home education (Jolly and Matthews, 2020), has witnessed a notable increase in the number of ‘accidental home educators’ (English, 2021), warranting additional attention. Many families are opting for home education not for a deliberate choice, but as the ‘last resort option’, especially in the case of children with special educational needs (Gillie, 2022; Kendall and Taylor, 2016; Maxwell et al., 2020). The pandemic schooling experience, related to the COVID-19 pandemic, also served as a crucial catalyst for the rise of home education. In addition, some marginal home-educating groups, for example Black, Gypsy, Traveller, and Roma families, are still not adequately represented in research (Myers, 2020).

In my paper (Chinazzi, 2023), I concluded that:

• We need to go beyond stigmatised, polarised and simplistic perspectives to foster the authentic engagement of the EHE communities in research and policymaking processes. Considering the principles of the social contract for education outlined in UNESCO (2021), home-educated students and home educators should be entitled to a voice in the co-construction of the future of education.
• Due to the private nature of the practice and the complexity of assessing its outcomes, home education is not the ideal arrangement to serve and monitor the social function of education. Nevertheless, it should not be considered as an obstacle for the realisation of a better future of education. On the contrary, home education can be seen as a fruitful provocation of ‘the education for all education vision’ wherein, the prevalence and existence of home education is a ‘Socratic gadflies’ that invites its stakeholders to critically examine the multi-faceted and contested purposes of education. This may serve as a constructive criticism for the development of the school system itself, which – as also stated in the UNESCO’s report (2021) – does not always meet the needs and rights of all children and young people.

Key messages

Considering the practice of home education, to fulfil and enact UNESCO’s aim of enabling new possibilities for transforming education for all, the following key messages stand out:

• For researchers: Further empirical studies on home education are required to capture the evolving landscape of educational practices that extend beyond formal education. Involving families in participatory research initiatives can help gather perspectives from home-educating students, who are often overlooked despite being central stakeholders. This is crucial for enhancing understanding of educational, social and emotional outcomes, including the transitions of home-educating young people to higher and further education (Wheeler, 2023). Additionally, researchers should adopt accessible dissemination practices to create bridging spaces with practitioners and policymakers.
• For home-education practitioners: Home-education practitioners, including both educators and students, are encouraged to assert their voices and share their perspectives, actively contributing to the larger conversation on the future of education for all. Research dissemination initiatives should be taken into consideration so they could feed forward into pedagogic and daily educational practices.
• For policymakers: Policymakers are urged to participate in knowledge-exchange and research dissemination initiatives. This would foster meaningful and empirically informed contributions to the policy-cycle through multi-agency partnerships.