Home Schooling and Home Education ― Race, Class and Inequality

Home schooling and Home Education provides an original account of home education and examines ways in which the discourses of home education are understood and contextualised in different countries such as the UK and USA. There are considerable variations across Europe and North America in the legislative and regulatory policies relating to home education and concerns have been raised that home schooling remains under-reported and difficult to monitor.

By exploring home education in the global and local context of traditional schooling, the book aims to bridge a much-needed gap in educational and social scientific research. The authors will examine home education from two related perspectives: firstly exploring how and why home education is accessed by different social groups; and secondly, how these various groups are perceived as home educators. The book will examine the experiences of home educators from different backgrounds, and as a result, will seek to offer suggestions for viable policy shifts in this area, as well as broadening understandings of risk and marginality.

Drawing upon empirical case study research with those who use home education in order to address issues of inequality, difference and inclusion, the book aims to engage and initiate debates about alternatives to the standard schooling model within a critical sociological context. The scholarly emphasis and original nature of all chapters make it essential reading for academics and postgraduate researchers in the fields of education, sociology and anthropology, as well as educational policymakers.

Kalwant Bhopal is Professor of Education and Social Justice at the?University of Southampton in the UK.

Martin Myers is currently based at The Open University in the UK.