Conclusions
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study>Conclusions
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>Menu>Feasibility
study>Conclusions
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Who we are. The home education community is notoriously difficult to categorise. Government statistics have failed to quantify even numbers of home educators and research aimed at giving a definitive answer has been treated with suspicion by a community which values privacy. Roland Meighan has estimated that there are upwards of 30,000 home educating families and as they have larger than average families this mean that there are as many as 87,000 home educated children in the United Kingdom This constitutes 1% of the school aged population. Paula Rothermel’s research has indicated that the figure could be much higher, perhaps 120.000, but a figure between these two seems likely and 50,000 would certainly be a conservative estimate given the growing popularity of this form of education. As Rothermel’s research indicated, tentative findings seem to indicate that the preponderance of children electively out of school is in the 5 –11 age range, with almost two children in this age range for every one child aged 11-16. However, once again numbers here appear to be rising with more children of secondary age remaining out of school or coming out of school as bullying and other negative impacts of school culture become less tolerable. Around one in nine of these children have some form of special educational need or disability and this again is becoming an increasing factor in parents’ disaffection with schools. (cf. Home Educating Our Autistic Spectrum Children, edited by T. Dowty & K. Cowlishaw, Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2002) In her study, Rothermel noted a preponderance of manual and semi-skilled work amongst home educating parents. It is a common perception that those who take charge of their children’s education, show most interest and impact positively on their children’s life chances are parents of middle and upper class social scales. Like Rothermel, we have found that this is not the case amongst home educators. In our early findings it can be seen that almost 17% of respondents are living in real poverty on incomes of under £10.000 p.a., whilst a further 25% are living on an income below the national average, falling into the category of eligibility for working family tax credit This gives a total of 42% of families earning under the national average. Benefits take up on the other hand accounts for approximately 35% of respondents, indicating a level of information gap and the possibility of social exclusion. Despite this, Rothermel, Meighan and Thomas all consistently find successful educational outcomes, leaving wide open the questions of why there should be this success and what is meant by success. Although a higher percentage of electively home educating families than might be expected have lower incomes those responding do tend to come from two parent, nuclear families, though this may also reflect those willing to fill in a questionnaire. There is undoubtedly a large pool of Travellers who home educate, but the issues of privacy and separate community are particularly keen amongst this group, often with very good historical reason. In terms of ethnicity the majority of respondents overwhelmingly define themselves as Caucasian, some stressing their Scottish or Celtic origins. In our sample Mixed race and Asian respondents figured very lowly and Black afro-Caribbean or African descent not at all. This may again represent self selection. Support groups for Muslim home educators do flourish and within cities such as Birmingham social support groups have achieved inclusion across cultural and racial groups, but accessing these groups for wider research is a distinct area that bears more scrutiny. What we do. It is when we come to educational delivery that the differences in method from mainstream educational provision become acutely apparent. Less than 1% of respondents fully adhere to the National Curriculum, bearing out the findings of Meighan, Rothermel and Thomas that whatever the style of the educational provision, there is a strong attempt to individualise learning around specific children. Whilst 38% pick up parts of the National Curriculum within their learning agendas, 62% of families do not look to the National Curriculum in any shape or form. Whilst the National Curriculum as a whole features very little in elective home education, 25% of home educators do use some form of curriculum style books frequently and a further 37% use curriculum books sometimes. However, 38% of home educators in the sample never use any form of curriculum style texts. Similarly, in terms of how time is structured 36% use a timetable only loosely and 40% do not use any form of timetable. One of the most distinctive features of elective home based education is that children initiate their own learning much more frequently. In 17% of families it is the children who overwhelmingly initiate all learning, whilst in a further 72% of families the initiative is shared amongst adults and children. In only 11% of families do adults initiate what is to be learnt. In his research Thomas found that there is a drift towards autonomous and flexible approaches to education as experience of home education develops. Rothermel found that flexibility was the key with families being prepared to move either towards more autonomous approaches or more structured approaches depending on current perceived needs. The categories used to define educational provision bear a great deal more scrutiny, but our initial findings support these earlier indications. Families often describe themselves in several ways; sometimes in ways that are superficially contradictory such as ‘flexible and structured’, again indicating a need for more research into these self designations, but what is very clear from the responses is that flexibility is the single most important approach, with a great number of respondents indicating an autonomous style and very few seeing themselves as ‘formal’ or as trying to imitate school at home. The image of the home education family huddled around the kitchen table pouring over text books is largely fallacious and this is born out by the wide range of resources that are used by home educators. The term ‘home-educators’ itself is perhaps misleading given the breadth of resources and loci used for learning and it is for this reason that the term’ home-based educators’ is often preferred. The resources used by home educators often reflect underlying stances to education, for example there is a split in opinion as to whether general TV and computer CD roms are positive or negative educational influences and these findings will bear a good deal of closer scrutiny. Support One of the first questions any home educator is asked, whether by interested stranger, extended family or educational officials is how home educated children can learn social skills and not become prey to social exclusion. Support is a key issue for many home educators, but the extent to which it is being accessed is a key issue within the home educating community. Amongst our respondents a large percentage belonged to the largest national support group, Education Otherwise and a large range of other support groups were represented. However, at the time of the study Education Otherwise has fewer than 4,000 members (2000 now grown to over 4000 in 2002) and this in no way equates to either Meighan’s conservative estimates of 50,000 home educators and Rothermel’s estimates of up to 120,000 home educators. Across the country there is a network of local support groups meeting for anything from social meetings to rock climbing to skiing to drama and so on. Many of these are organised by Education Otherwise local co-ordinators, but in most cases group members do not have to belong to the national membership to join in. Of those in our sample 26% meet together weekly and a further 27% meet more than once a month. However, 22% of respondents only meet with other families occasionally and 21% say that they never meet up with other home educating families in local groups. Since all the research shows that home educated children do not lack social skills and are in fact often socially adept, this raises the question of what conditions are needed in order to avoid social exclusion and social dysfunction. Are home educating families offering alternative models of social development? Virtual support has become an increasingly dominant factor in the lives of many home educators with the rise of Internet access. The UK–Home-Ed list is the single most important mailing list support for home educators with 85% of our respondents subscribing to this list. Whilst Education Otherwise is the largest on the group support group nationally, in terms of websites it is independent sites that provide the most information and support, particularly FRED (Free Range Education), a site that specialises in supporting newcomers and sign posting resources and legal issues, and Home Education UK (www.home-education.org), the largest home education site with support, articles, resources, chat rooms and notice boards. The Role of Research The home education community is often wary of research. Privacy is a key issue and, having stepped out of the mainstream of educational provision and philosophy, a significant number of home educators do not view educational success and outcomes in expected and conventional ways. It is therefore essential that future research respects these reservations and begins to analyse some of the alternative thinking and educational models arising from this community. With this background in mind it is interesting to note that the main research concern for our respondents was the support, information and networking. Research which overcomes social exclusion, whether real or perceived, is the most welcome research. 41% of our respondents listed the benefits to society as the most important outcome of research. The influences for and against home education, the concept of success in education, who education is for and the relationship of welfare issues to home education all figured highly. Issues which scored under 25% as the most important research category were: The range of educational delivery (perhaps because this has already been more widely reported in earlier research and in anecdotal and snapshot literature (cf. Free Range Education, Dowty et al, Hawthorne 2000; Doing it Their way, Fortune-Wood, Educational Heretics Press, 2000 & Learning Unlimited, Meighan, Educational Heretics Press, 2001) The role of outcomes and spin-offs for home educating families The meaning of success for home educating families (interestingly the philosophical and educational concept of ‘success’ is of much more importance than the way individual families feel about success) Whether socialisation is a problem for home educated children. (Whilst adherence to national support groups and local meetings is relatively low and whilst the question of what support home educators want is the most important research question, home educators do not see socialisation as a problem.) Asked a supplementary question about the purpose of research the overwhelming consensus is that research should both dispel the common myths that surround home education and that it should raise the profile of home education with the general public. Once again the perception of social exclusion needs to be challenged. The feasibility research throws up some key questions about the home education community and their role in and links to the community at large. There remains significant work to be done on who home educators are. Whilst most of the work already done concentrates on method of delivery and style of educational provision there are interesting questions to be asked about how alternative provision impacts on conventional educational assumptions and about the role and range of individual and community resources accessed. In addition, the home educating community perceives distinct gaps in research into home based education and initial findings suggest clear priorities for research that will diminish the reality or perception of social exclusion. The issue of support is the most prominent. In what ways are current support strategies meeting or failing to meet needs? What do home educators want in terms of support, information, networking and organisations? How are issues of success, welfare, socialisation and social inclusion impacted by the provision or lack of support? Other issues of research concern are:
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