Volume: 17  Number: 2&3  Page: 74–89

Can We Classify Motives for Home Education?

Paula Rothermel School of Education, University of Durham, UK

Home educators are often stereotyped by concerned professionals and others who make statements based upon their beliefs rather than research. Characteristics such as, eccentric, arrogant, ignorant, middle-class and hippy are often associated with home educators. Increasingly too, they are represented as a potential danger to their children, either emotionally or physically, to the extent that extra monitoring has been called for. This leads to the question of what type of people home educate? This paper explores the possibility of classifying home educators according to their motives, using categories defined by earlier research. The paper concludes that in the UK context, such classifications are simplistic and misleading. A different approach is proposed defining home educators instead by strata; first as a superficially homogenous group, secondly as diverse groups, thirdly as families and fourthly as individuals. This stratum approach gives insight into the increasing numbers of families who are choosing to home educate and their growing appearance as a movement. Whilst home educators may appear to be the beneficiaries of strength in diversity, their rising profile and snowballing numbers may also be the cause of them becoming increasingly ‘problematised’ by professionals and by government, with a consequent increase in restrictions and legislative control.

Keywords: homeschooling, child-centred, learning, lifestyle, parenting, children

© 2003 P. Rothermel

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