Is a Whole School Approach to Inclusion Really Meeting the Needs of All Learners? Home-Schooling Parents’ Perceptions

Abstract

This paper examines issues impacting parental choice for home-schooling in one state in Australia. Data were collected from 99 parents home-schooling at least one child during the 2022 academic year. Utilizing the newly developed Parent Perceptions of Home-Schooling scale, consideration was given to proactive and reactive reasons perceived by parents as impacting their decision-making. Proactive reasons consisting of philosophical beliefs and needs of the child were cited more frequently by parents who had always home-schooled their child. Reactive reasons were mostly employed to confirm parent decisions to remove a child from school due to concerns regarding the school, the child, and the needs of parents. A range of school, child, and parental issues, and different child needs were identified as impetus for home-schooling learners with and without a diagnosed disability or an additional learning need. Discussion centers around whether current whole school approaches to inclusion are addressing the needs of all learners and parents, as perceived by this cohort. By gaining a better understanding of parental reasons for withdrawing their children with specific educational needs from regular schooling, this study is significant as it highlights a range of pertinent school-based issues to be considered to ensure effective inclusion for all.

Greater Expectations: An Appreciative Inquiry into How UK Home-Educating Families Support Their Children’s Learning

“…Consequently, parents are permitted to choose to educate their children themselves. Therefore, just like home schoolers in other countries, UK families choose to educate their children at home for a diverse range of reasons [8][9][10][11], seek support from various sources [12], and explore multiple routes to higher education and career paths [13]. However, studies dedicated to this area of research are scarce, and there is a notable lack of studies describing how families engaged in home education in the UK facilitate their children's learning.…”

“…For example, Jolly and colleagues' study found that most of the parents they observed implemented home education only after multiple failures to find a public school that they were satisfied with [17]. Some home-educating parents decided to opt for home education because their children who had additional learning needs were not able to fit into the mainstream school system [8,9].These parents desired to provide a better education, and they can implement a curriculum and learning environment that works specifically for their children [17,18]. In summary, home education certainly appears to provide an environment that encourages parents to exercise their autonomy in supporting their children's learning and tailoring their education to individual needs.…”

Implementation of Home-Schooling: Parents’ Practices and Processes

“…By nature, home-schooling is individualized and child focused, within which there are many alternative approaches to implementing home-schooling. In addition, there are many reasons why parents may choose to home-school their child [4]. These include adherence to a specific ideology (often at odds with traditional educational practices) which works to instill personal beliefs [5].…”

“…There are also many parents who chose to home-school their child as they do not feel that the traditional classroom provides stimulating, motivating, or appropriate content for them [3]. Different motivations for home-schooling can be reactive (due to reacting to a situation or circumstance) or proactive (making a deliberate choice to home-school due to strongly held beliefs) [4,5]. In Western Australia, parents who had always home-schooled their child cited proactive philosophical beliefs and the needs of the child as mostly being employed in their decision-making [4].…”

“…Different motivations for home-schooling can be reactive (due to reacting to a situation or circumstance) or proactive (making a deliberate choice to home-school due to strongly held beliefs) [4,5]. In Western Australia, parents who had always home-schooled their child cited proactive philosophical beliefs and the needs of the child as mostly being employed in their decision-making [4]. Reactive reasons were most frequently cited when deciding to withdraw a child from school to home-school, in concern for their child's needs not being met.…”