IMPACT OF REGULATION: One Mother’s Story

Record: Giuliana Liberto, “Child-led and interest-inspired learning, home education, learning differences and the impact of regulation.” Cogent Education, 3 (2016): 1-10. [Abstract]

Summary: Giuliana Liberto is a home educator who researched the effects of increased regulation on children’s learning and well-being in the home education community of New South Wales, Australia.

Read Full Post »

AUSTRALIAN HOME EDUCATED STUDENTS: Opportunities for Self-Regulation at Home & in School

Record: Glenda Jackson, “Australian home educated students on self-regulation opportunities at home and in school.” Cogent Education, 3, No. 1 (2016). [Abstract]

Summary: In this article, Jackson, an educational consultant with the Australian Home Education Advisory Service (AHEAS) and a PhD recipient from Monash University, discusses self-regulation opportunities at home and in school among Australian home educated students.

Read Full Post »

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON HOME EDUCATION: Do We Still Need Schools?

International Perspectives of Home Education discusses home-based education in a wide variety of countries such as the UK, USA, Australia, Israel, Afghanistan, Norway, Germany and more. The volume was edited by Paula Rothermel, a UK academic in the field of home education. She is Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and Elected Associated Fellow of the British Psychological Society (ABPS). She also coordinates the International Network for Research into Home Education, a global community of scholars interested in home education research.

 

Over the next several weeks, all 21 chapters will be reviewed in order. Links will be added as reviews are posted. Here follows a table of contents for the volume:

Read Full Post »

HOME EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES

Record: Talina Drabsch, “Home Education in NSW” in NSW Parliament E-Brief, issue 7 (August, 2013). [available here]

Summary: Drabsch, a frequent contributor to the New South Wales (NSW) Parliamentary Library pubilcations series, here summarizes the home education situation in NSW and so much more.

Read Full Post »

USE YOUR FREEDOM OF CHOICE: Australian Unschoolers and Attachment Parenting

Record: Rebecca English, “Use Your Freedom of Choice: Reasons for Choosing Homeschool in Australia” in Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning 9, no. 17 (2015): 1-18. [Avaliable Here]

Summary: English, a Lecturer in Education at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, here presents a portion of a larger qualitative study of a group of attachment parenting mothers in Queensland, all of whom are part of the same unschooling support group.  English reveals in the article that she herself is a practitioner of attachment parenting and contributes articles for a movement magazine.  She also publishes journalistic articles on this and related topics online, and maintains her own blog on the same themes.

Read Full Post »

CHILDREN WITH AN AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER: Educating at Home in Australia

Record: Jasmine McDonald and Elaine Lopes, “How Parents Home Educate their Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder with the Support of the Schools of Isolated and Distance Education” in International Journal of Inclusive Education 18, no. 1 (2014): 1-17. [abstract here]

Summary:  McDonald completed her doctoral thesis on how parents deal with the education of a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in 2010.  Lopes completed her doctoral thesis on Distance Education in Western Australia in 2009.  Here these two junior scholars combine their research to investigate the role of a distance education program in helping parents manage the education of children with an ASD.

They begin by explaining the history of the Schools of Isolated and Distance Education (SIDE), a government program begun in 1918 as the Western Australian Correspondence School whose goal was to provide public instruction to students isolated from conventional schools due to geography or special needs.  This program has over the years used itinerant teachers, radio broadcasts, camp settings, and all sorts of distance education technology (audio tapes, videos, and now the internet) to reach isolated children.  While the students attending SIDE have historically been geographically isolated, the bulk of enrollments now are students with special needs that conventional schools cannot accommodate.  SIDE is thus a “school of last resort” for many. (p.3)

One group of children for whom SIDE is a resource are those diagnosed with an ASD.  McDonald and Lopes explain that an ASD diagnosis typically means that a student faces difficulties with communication, socialization, and behavior.  The clear trend over the last several decades in public education has been toward inclusion of these students into regular education, but in the last few years a small but growing literature has raised questions about this approach, as have many parents of children with an ASD diagnosis.  Some parents, reacting against the inclusive model and the lack of individualized instruction it sometimes entails, have felt forced to remove their children from institutional schooling and educate them at home.

Read Full Post »