Abstract
Home education is an educational approach that some parents choose for their children. It is an intentional rejection of school-based education, which instead centralises the family as a site and source of learning. Philosophical debates orient home education both as a parental right and as a threat to democracy. In some ways, home education makes sense within neoliberal discourses emphasising school-choice, but it is also at odds with neoliberal goals such as competitive standardisation. Families choose home education for a variety of reasons, and it is practised in a variety of ways. However, what is not made clear through the literature on home education is how home education is conceptualised and embodied in the New Zealand context. In the international literature, there are very few inquiries into the discursive constitution of home education and the subjectivities of those involved. My thesis addresses both of these gaps.
I set out to answer the following question: What discourses constitute New Zealand home educating families’ educational practices and subjectivities? My conceptual framework drew on Foucauldian-inspired theories of discourses and their materialities (Foucault, 1972, 1978; Hook, 2001), including their spatial and temporal manifestations (Kraftl, 2013a, 2013b). I also used conceptions of subjectivities articulated by Davies (1991, 2000). I spent time with eight home educating families from around New Zealand, recording fieldnotes and interviewing parents and children. I analysed data through an iterative process of reading theory in conjunction with data, using a five-step discourse analysis approach, and writing.
I found that while home educating families operate largely outside the New Zealand education system, they continued to interact with it. The Education Act requires that home educated children be taught “as regularly and well as” they would be in a registered school (Ministry of Education, 2020a, p. 92). This language sets the scene for what is expected, but also for what is rejected. I argue that home educating families, once granted school exemption, move away from school-like practices and position home education not as ‘well as’ but as ‘better than’ school. I also argue that families’ use of space and time was informed by their binary constructions of school/home education and that families mobilised counter-discourses, which included: learning happens anywhere, at any time, and that children learn best at their own pace. Another key discourse that families engaged with was that of home education as socially isolating. I argue that families worked to dispel this and to mobilise counter discourses and subjectivities that constructed home education as a social practice.
These findings provide valuable analytical insights into the seemingly private worlds of home educating families. As home education student numbers steadily rise in New Zealand it is important to build an understanding of this educational arena and to understand how those who do it conceptualise and embody the practice. My findings assist in expanding the literature that explores home education, by conducting research undertaken in the New Zealand context and by developing a discursive analysis. These insights may be useful for educational theorists, practitioners, and policy makers. Ideally, this thesis will also serve to improve the status of home education as a legitimate educational pathway available to New Zealand families, if they have the means and interest to pursue it.