CHAPTER 11: CONCLUSION

Chapter 11: Conclusion

This chapter concludes the thesis by commenting on the questionnaire, assessment and interview findings before closing with a brief discussion of the possibilities for further research.

From the questionnaire data came the conclusion that most home-educators would have preferred to be more involved in their local communities. Families tended not to be affluent and to need external support that often only came at a financial cost. Isolation from the wider community, the result of not having their children in school, placed some families under extreme pressure. Raising a family on the equivalent of one income was a further burden on many families. Despite these constraints, families valued the freedom to live according to their own ideals and relished the flexibility to, 'do what we want, when we want'. Their poverty was of their own choice, if not preference, and families generally believed that the 'cost' of exercising such control over their own lives far outweighed the disadvantages.

Insofar as the PIPS Reception data was concerned, the home-educated 4 and 5 year olds demonstrated high levels of ability and good social skills, apparently benefiting from an education tailored to their individual needs and from the attention given to them by their families. It is possible that the self-motivation so evident in many of the 4-5 year olds, stemmed from greater parental participation in their learning process, a more flexible curriculum and an individualised educational programme that reflected their own and their parents' interests. Parents of the home-educated children in this age group tended to have planned for home-education from birth, or at least from very early on; thus the parents had generally given more attention to their children's early learning than they might perhaps have done, had they known that the children would soon be starting school. The parents were, thus, not awaiting the 'big day' when school began and responsibility for their children's education would be delegated to an external institution.

The Literacy assessment results suggested that the environment within which literacy skills are acquired may be of less importance than is often believed. The major impact upon attaining, not only literacy but other skills too, may be the extent to which each child is free to follow a pathway dictated by their own cognitive development. It seemed that whilst the home-educators provided a rich stimulating environment for the children, sometimes it needed the children's input to activate the parents' energy. Thus, despite the transactional motion of the learning process (Sameroff 1991) the onus was very much on the children to initiate learning in areas that interested them, unlike that seen in a school environment where the learning content and method are imposed and adult led.

That similar numbers of late-readers were found amongst home-educated and school attending samples, suggested that imposed methods have little impact and that, perhaps, there will always be an unpredictable percentage for whom the route they take is unsuitable. Without huge numbers of unschooled children from Western culture to observe, there will always be those who argue that comparison between different types of schooling is sufficient to 'prove' the benefit of schooling. The literacy assessment results provide evidence that whilst excellent levels of skill can be acquired without formal tuition, it is inappropriate to use the same measures to assess both schooled and non-schooled groups. Results from the maths component where 100% of the children scored at or above the 50^th percentile also suggested that if home-educated children are to be assessed, a more appropriate system is required that can better focus on the holistic nature of their learning.

For many of the children assessed during this research, the absence of prior experience in testing may have disadvantaged them. It was clear from comments made by families that some of the children simply misunderstood what was required of them. Instructions that would be treated as understood by schoolchildren were sometimes alien to the home-educated children and this unfamiliarity would necessarily form an important factor in any further testing of such children. So whilst the children were on the one hand advantaged by the absence of the school learning 'see-saw' effect reported by Tymms (1998) and by the informality with which they could approach the assessments safe in the knowledge of the 'within-family' inconsequence of their performance, they were at a disadvantage when faced with an assessment format. Their performance was further affected by frustration at not being able to learn during the process by having their questions answered as they arose. This latter aspect emphasises the irrelevance of testing to children whose motivation may well diminish upon the realisation, consciously or otherwise, that there are times when the dynamic nature of their cognitive development (Karmiloff-Smith 1994) should be 'put on hold'.

For the home-educated cohort, there was no right or wrong time to learn; it may well be that the most efficient way in which to gain skills and knowledge for life, would be to permit children to acquire information at their own pace, rather than force upon them external representations of learning patterns based upon contentious theory and somewhat arbitrary target setting, such as that seen in the National Literacy Strategy (Beard 1999). Testing often appears to be based upon institution led standards rather than upon the child's best interests and whilst it is clear that institutions do need to assess their own performance, it may in the long run be counterproductive to pass this burden on to the 'consumer'[1]. The testing program per se of the home-educated children underlined the need for a more child-centred approach to examination, if such a requirement is deemed to exist at all, whereby children could be assessed without impairment to their motivation for learning. The stress that these assessments, administered under such informal conditions, caused for some, albeit very few, families, provided perhaps, an insight into the negative effect of the testing ethos. Schoolchildren are apprenticed into the assessment environment from a very early age and so whether this negativity extends to them also and whether to all or just some, cannot be confirmed, although the evidence taken from press reports[2] certainly suggests the possibility.

Some of the parental comments served to raise the question of what was, or is, being tested by these and other assessments. Bearing in mind that the PIPS format was, through the inclusion of non-academic elements, quite wide-ranging, the very narrow format of the assessments used both in this research and in schools generally at these age groups (i.e. Standard Assessment Tasks 'SATS'), precludes any real assessment of what children know. Here, the results served to evaluate the home-educated children's attainment on school normed comparisons, but they did not inform about what level of learning the children had attained.

Section 3.2.2 referred to the distinction between home-education's 'late reader' and problematic child with 'limited literacy skills' in school (Brooks 1997), whereby the difference was actually one of phraseology rather than a reference to any concrete variation. A similar situation was found in Section 3.3.2, whereby home-educated children's informal mathematical knowledge had been referred to by Thomas (1998) as something rather special, inferring that this was peculiar to home-education[3]. As Aubrey (1997) has shown, however, pre-schoolers generally have extensive informally acquired mathematical knowledge. The difference appears to be in the value placed upon that informal learning. By extension, a debate should follow as to whether informal knowledge is, during the early years, of more consequence than formally gained understanding. In the absence of further follow-up home-education research, the question will remain unanswered, although Aubrey and Godfrey's (1999) ongoing research may reveal whether in time, those international children with informal foundations benefit more than those taught formally from an early age.

Overall, the CABS, RRS and SDQ assessments proved useful in assessing the social and psychological state of the home-educated children in the sample. The CABS questionnaire, the use of which had caused concern bearing in mind its 'Americanistic' language and content, provided rich data, both qualitative and quantitative. The RRS was precise in highlighting children with difficulties and was appropriate, being aimed as it was at the 'school aged child' rather than the 'schoolchild'[4]. Calculated according to Goodman's procedure (1997) the SDQ results provided an interesting contrast with the CABS and RRS data. The combination of these three measures allowed the home-educated children to be assessed through a triangulation process (taking data from a variety of sources) such as that discussed by Burgess (1982) and used by Lowden (1993) in his research into home-education (See section 4.8.1). Thus the psychosocial insight into the children gleaned through this research was not the result of just one perspective, but rather, three. The results, whereby the RRS and SDQ outcomes were very different, confirmed the usefulness of using more than one measure on the children. Having been the subject of so little previous research, the UK home-educated children were very much an unknown quantity and exploring their nature through diverse means was, in the final analysis, justified. Larger samples would have been helpful but with limitations to the research by way of age restrictions, distribution, access, availability etc. the samples used were the largest available to this author at the time. It would have been possible to have combined the RRS and SDQ samples, as they were aimed at similar age groups, but the value of having used these two instruments to evaluate the home-educated children is only too evident in view of the different outcomes from each instrument.

What the test instruments revealed is the extent to which diversity can be limited once we accept a 'norm' and regard variation from that 'norm' as abnormal. The two British measures, the RRS and the SDQ were designed according to their authors' normative decision about what behaviour is considered acceptable and so, when standardised using a large sample, the instruments become, in effect, self-fulfilling. These tests are about contemporary ideas, normed according to our culture and time. Used for intervention they might well be considered as reinforcing their own standards, highlighting those children whose behaviour differs from the norm. The use of these tests in assessing the home-educated children emphasised the need for diversity in our perception of children's behaviour. The tests, it appeared, aspired towards a passive and malleable child who needed to be part of a same-age peer group. It may be that tests' objectives were connected with what Self (1998) has described as the contemporary fetishisation[5] of childhood whereby we ignore the nature of children as young adults (Das Gupta 1994), seeing them instead as passive recipients of adult determination. The home-educated children were seen in this research to represent a group who were indeed different from the norm and whose parents, on the whole, treated their children as integral to the family infrastructure with rights and responsibilities similar, and equal to, other members of the family. This applied as much to the liberal families who believed in their children's right to a voice as to the fundamental religious families who believed that every member of the family had a role and duty to the family. Interestingly, whilst the British scales, particularly the SDQ seemed set to minimise diversity in their psychological perspective, the North American CABS social measure promoted a far wider perspective by allowing for measurement along the passivity-assertiveness-aggression spectrum.

What these and earlier results may indicate is that the criteria for success in terms of children's development, academic achievement and emotional well being, rests in the context of a close loving environment within which the child receives individual attention and is content. Such an environment seems to nurture the instinct to learn: whether this enthusiasm continues throughout the 'school-age' years may have less to do with what happens during 6 hours (the school day) of each 24 hour period and more to do with how the child is treated for the remaining 18 hours, that is to say, the majority of the time. There may be both unfavourable school and unfavourable home environments, for both school and home-educated children. The overall evidence, however, suggests that where a family are electively home-educating, the environment is more likely to be favourable than otherwise, simply because of the commitment required of the parents and other family members. The findings here indicate that parental influence may be a far stronger determinant of personal outcome than that of any educational mechanism, whether it takes place in, or out, of school.

The families interviewed demonstrated tremendous diversity between each other that was sometimes characterised by conflict of one form or another, itself often the result of families feeling isolated from social norms. Most families however, had few misgivings about their decision to home-educate, despite a sense that many families would have preferred a mid-way option that was neither full-time school nor home-education. Interviewee families treasured the freedom and flexibility that came with home-education although for some families, there came a time when home-education limited their ambitions: this was the point at which some children transferred to school, to college or to university. It appeared that home-education often acted as a catalyst, allowing the family to progress more flexibly than if they had been 'fixed' by the daily obligation to send the children to school. Families made clear that home-education was a lifestyle choice that brought to them a closeness that could not have been hoped for from a more conventional adherence to societal norms.

It was apparent from this research that home-educated children need to be judged by different criteria to that used with school educated children. There was no sign that the children themselves had any problems interacting with their school counterparts, indeed, from the interviews it was quite clear that children together are more interested in the activity or game at hand than discussing their education day (there did not seem to be much difference between children from different schools playing together and children from school and non-school backgrounds). However, this research looked at the children through traditional methods, using national assessments and practised psychological tests, and as the research progressed it became increasingly apparent that attempting to view these children in terms of what is normally expected, was inadequate. They were always going to deviate from the norm, whether because they excelled, showed delays or just differences. In the questionnaire we saw how the families valued the time they spent together, how every day was deemed an experience to treasure, with freedom, flexibility, closeness and time to talk, the mainstays of the home educating family. The assessments showed how the children excelled and the indications were that this was as a result of the time and attention given to the children. It was not sitting at a desk and observing lessons that motivated the children but, rather, the enthusiasm and commitment of parents and children themselves.

The conclusions drawn from the psychosocial assessments were that judgements made on home-educated children by comparing them with norms, are likely to be misleading. Home-educated children have different needs and their parents different expectations for them. A home-educated child who is dependent upon being in a group may be a difficult child whilst a school going child who prefers his own company may likewise be deemed to have a problem. However, in the appropriate context, these children appear perfectly normal. A home-educated child needs, it seems, to be able to converse with adults, needs to be self-sufficient, responsible and reliable. Such a child needs to be able to appreciate time alone and make their own amusements. Goodman (1997) however, regarded these attributes as evidence of poor adjustment. Yet to criticise these children for excelling in the areas that are essential to them, is illogical, particularly since there is, so far as this writer has been able to determine, no research that suggests norming against the majority is the correct path to follow. The point is emphasised by the problems being experienced at the time of writing in Scotland (see Section 1.2) with the proposed draft guidance that would effectively instruct Scottish Education Authorities to judge home-educated children by school based standards. Meighan (2002) has described this as, 'judging tennis by the rules of basketball'.

The children played an important role as active members in the life of their families. The mismatch of a home-educated child with school survival skills appeared to lead to problems and vice versa. Section 5.12 dealt with the concept of the post-school transitional period, whereby children were said to need time to adapt and learn that they did not have to seek permission constantly. Home-educated children going into school, as the field-notes show, were seen as being too confident and too outspoken. This latter point was highlighted by parents' descriptions of the disadvantages of school, such as, conformity, bullying and peer pressure - all aspects of school that were alien to the home educated children and to which they appeared to have problems adapting, as Section 5.13 and accompanying questionnaire commentaries demonstrated.

Research focusing on older post compulsory [home-]education children (eg. Webb 1999) and discussions with post-education age members of families included in this research gave no suggestion of later problems in adulthood. Indeed, the home-educated post 16 year olds believed that they fitted into society extremely well and in fact, were all the more equipped and appreciated by employers and universities for their experience.

Over the course of the research the reason why the children's academic prowess was not high on their parents' agendas became increasingly apparent. For the families there were far more significant and meaningful outcomes to home-education. These were children who were enjoying their childhood; their parents were loving the company of their children and experiences were shared. This was conveyed through the questionnaires (see for example, Chart 5.6), home-visits and interviews. Children were involved in activities that were meaningful to them. The families were living a life of their choosing, creating not just an education for their children but a congenial lifestyle for their family. This is not to say that parents did not find it hard and at times stressful to home-educate. Chart 5.7 showed how families often felt isolated and parents lacked time for themselves, and Section 5.6 reported on parents who said that home-education was more demanding and difficult than they had imagined. Nonetheless, overall, the message conveyed was that for these families home-education was not about educating children at home rather than at school: it was about a lifestyle decision.

What the research revealed was not just a difference in locus of education between home and school educated children, but rather, a far deeper distinction whereby all aspects of the family's life were affected. The way in which the family's lives were structured had, through necessity, to be structured around the fact that there were always children close by (not always the most welcome aspect as Chart 5.7 illustrated). Nevertheless, parents visited described how this proximity led to a close family unity simply because they were together so much of the time. Siblings were together seven days a week and there was little time for experiences to be separated, as clearly they must be, by formal education. Sibling rivalry was, it seemed, not such an issue for home-educators. Home-educating families were sharing the minutiae of their lives and this meant that the difference between such families and traditional school-using families was far more significant than is generally considered.

Whilst the children did not see themselves as different and to some extent neither did their parents, society did. However, this difference was the superficial division between being 'normal' and 'odd'. The real difference, existed at a far deeper level than usually comes to the surface in day to day conversation between parents. That is to say, parents of home-educated children did not report problems mixing with parents of schoolchildren in terms of the usual chit-chat that parents share. When it came to firm friendships, however, parents were more likely to mix with adults who shared their common non-traditional values, not just about education, but concerning lifestyle generally. Perhaps, just as currently we use the term 'special needs' and do not attempt to draw comparisons, between 'them' and 'us', it would be useful not to attempt to judge home-educated children within stereotyped traditional parameters but rather see them as children (and families) whose lifestyle simply follows a different path. Further, home-educating parents are best viewed as both parents and educators, with credit given to them for the two separate 'professional' roles.

Further Research

Clearly a wider questionnaire survey would be useful, designed with the benefit of hindsight as a result of the current research. For example, it was clear from the results that more personal questions could have been asked, leaving it for the respondent to decide when a question went beyond what they would want to answer. Putting out the present survey was a considerable task however, and to repeat and widen distribution efforts would prove very difficult indeed.

As regards assessment, this research illustrated how, whilst it remains important to compare school and home-educated children, it does not follow that they should be judged by the same criteria. Further research might develop appropriate criteria for assessment. It was notable, however, that in spite of potential bias towards school children (owing to the nature of the tests used) home-educated children nevertheless did well.

In view of the apparently beneficial effects of young children remaining in the company of their families, the PIPS Baseline element of the research implicitly raised questions concerning early years childcare provision, and as such, bore out many of the findings of Tizard and Hughes (1984). Further work, therefore needs to be undertaken to establish what would be in the best interests of young children, both academically and socially.

Working with these children over the research period it became evident that an examination of home-educated children's artistic development over time would be a useful theme for further investigation. These children, unexposed to the requirements of the National Curriculum in Art might exhibit less restrained and more imaginative flair. It would be interesting to establish whether the home-educated children's art made a downward U turn after the age of 7 years, such as that seen in schoolchildren (Davis 1997) and whether their progress followed traditional patterns such as Piaget's (Lee and Das Gupta 1995) or Lowenfeld's (1947) stages of artistic development.

Opened up by this research was the whole area of informal learning and more research into the benefits of informal learning would be both interesting and informative. The works of Thomas (1998), Rothermel (2000), Pine, Messer and Godfrey (1999), TIMMS (1995), and Aubrey and Godfrey (1999) could be followed up.

Following from the findings of Thomas (1998) that maths can be learned informally at an early age, there should perhaps, be follow-up research with the same home-educated cohort to assess the long-term implications of informal mathematics learning. Likewise with reading, research looking at the long-term effects of late reading could be accomplished through study of home-educated children who are, according to their parents, learning to read at their own pace.

The current research found that at the heart of success in home-education was the close relationship within the families. Comparison then, needs to be made between schoolchildren from supportive, nurturing, families and those from home-educated families: such children might, after all, be similar. A further area for investigation would be the relationship between home-educated ex-absentees and school educated absentees. An evaluation of whether parents of current absentees could be converted to Local Education Authority supported home-educators would be useful.

Overall, this research raised many questions. Its usefulness lies, perhaps, in having raised so many questions about home-education, our perception thereof, and its place in contemporary society. Certainly the very concept of 'taking responsibility' and educating one's children oneself rather than accepting state provision, challenges us to consider how far we should go in accepting the 'informed wisdom' of officialdom.

Conclusion Endnotes