Drawing upon Islamic epistemology to confront the challenges of a postcolonial world, some European Muslims are rejecting existing educational provision, seeking to formulate culturally-coherent pedagogy. This paper contributes to the debate on Islamic schools in Britain through the findings of a qualitative study of a British Muslim community…

The home-education of children is one "choice" of provision that is often overlooked or unreported in the debate on inclusive education for children with disabilities or special educational needs. This study aimed to access the views of these hard-to-reach home-educating families through an online survey. Twenty-seven parents, with at…

In this article has been extracted from a longer paper by the same name that came about in response to the Badman Review of Elective Home Education (Badman 2009). The first part briefly discusses the Badman Review. The next looks at the misunderstandings that can occur once concerns are raised in home education. Finally there are case studies…

Background: There is general agreement across all interested parties that a process of working together is the best way to determine which school or educational setting is right for an individual child with autism spectrum disorder. In the UK, families and local authorities both desire a constructive working relationship and see this as the best…

A common theme in the literature on care-giving is the issue of "hidden" carers, that is, people who undertake caring roles and responsibilities, yet do not identify themselves as carers. One reason people do not recognise themselves as carers relates to the nature of the caring relationship. When providing care for a family member,…

This paper suggests that rather than criminalising or pathologising truancy as a "deviant" behaviour in need of either treatment or punishment, truancy should be considered as a rational enactment of dissatisfaction with State educational provision. It should be of little surprise that attempts to "solve" the truancy…

In this essay James Conroy raises the question of how far the state should engage in the rearing of children, looking in particular at homeschooling as a site for contestation. He considers this question by looking specifically at recent developments in the United Kingdom around the elision of child safeguarding issues with concern about the…

With many thousands of home-educated children across the UK, the subject of support for the home-education community is widely debated. A report conducted by the NFER for the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation is based on detailed interviews with 20 home educators and presents findings on support needs. This Research Briefing illustrates some key findings…

During the last 2 years, Britain's Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has commissioned several pieces of research into various aspects of home education. These items of research have served to illustrate several of the most pressing local authority concerns with regard to the educational outcomes, socialisation and welfare of children…

This research captured the views of young people regarding their views of "how learning should be in the future". Four focus groups were run with different groups of school-age pupils. The ways in which technology was seen within these discussions were analysed. The findings noted that the explicit use of technological innovations, and…

Discusses some of the myths surrounding home-based schooling and some of the activities of Education Otherwise. Myths refuted include compulsory education and the illusion that only qualified teachers can educate at home. (JOW)

Should school be a place where children go because they want to go? Yes. Should school be a place where children only go if they want to? Yes. This paper questions the way that we educate our children, taking evidence, not from a school based perspective, but from research (Rothermel 1999a) into those families who choose not to use the system…

In this paper we report some of the literacy and numeracy actions developed on the Home School Knowledge Exchange (HKSE) project and examine these in relation to the engagement of participants. The exchanges of knowledge included two-way processes where aspects of children's out-of-school worlds informed teaching and learning in the classroom as…

Many thousands of children in the UK are educated at home, and the subject of support for the home-education community is debated. The National Foundation for Educational Research conducted research to examine the views of home educators about the support they receive from local authorities, other home-educating families, schools and other…

Describes an evaluation of the Parental Involvement in the Core Curriculum (PICC) Project that developed home-school practice in the curriculum at three London (England) schools. Suggests that teachers need to establish feasible initiatives for parental involvement. Concludes that teachers need more preservice and inservice support in order to set…