In the six interviews, three predominant themes prevailed: sense of community within home education networks, diversity of their social experiences and networks, and the importance of choice in socialising opportunities. These will be explored separately below using illustrative quotes from participants (pseudonyms in parentheses).
Sense of community
Home education networks were discussed by all participants as being beneficial and providing a medium for families from a variety of backgrounds to become a community. Parents and adolescents both expressed positive feelings towards being part of the networks and meeting with other home educating families. Parents reported using the network as a way of making friends with other families and as a means of support:
If it wasn’t for those groups, she probably wouldn’t see all the children that she does in the week, so I think it’s fantastic. When I first took her out of school I had no idea that all that existed, it was just amazing, you know, and some of the groups that I’m on on Facebook when mums are putting on questions like, ‘How do we do it? Blah blah blah’, you know, it’s just reassuring that there is no problem meeting people because there’s just so many parents doing it and so many kids out there to hook up with… (Lucy, Beth’s mother)
Lucy, and the other mothers, discussed the ease of creating socialising opportunities for families through online groups. Lucy also suggested that perhaps this online presence is not as visible to those outside of the home educating community. The mothers also actively participated in the networks by organising activities and groups that attracted other home educated children, which helped to expand the adolescents’ social circles:
And we started, you know, we did these groups, the art group and the book group simply to get other people… you know, for her to socialise with other people. And that was the whole aim of them really, not academic-wise because academically I could teach her everything she needs to know perfectly well but that’s not everything that is important.…. (Maria, Alice’s mother)
Maria highlighted socialising as the primary reason for setting up regular group meetings for her child and other home educated adolescents in their local area, above the academic benefits. This illustrates that she was considerate of social development as well as academic development. Additionally, Maria emphasised that while she could teach academic skills, interaction with peers was important to develop social skills. Within such groups, Gina reported that a shared interest in home education helped to create a strong social network for parents:
And I just like the home educating community, you know, you don’t get people who haven’t given a moment’s thought to their kids’ education. I mean nobody comes into it by accident.… There’s not a single person who hasn’t given a lot of thought to what’s best for their child, and they’re just lovely people to be around. People who actually really, really like and want to do the best for their kids. (Gina, Sophie’s mother)
Gina emphasised that the common interest in their adolescents’ education and socialisation created a positive environment when families met up, which reinforces the strong sense of community, and indicates a sense of shared identity between parents. The adolescents also experienced a similar sense of community within home education networks, predominantly through a sense of acceptance and understanding from other children:
Because I think most home educated kids have been bullied so they know how it feels, so they’re not horrible. And they’re so nice, and then like, at school, some kids are really horrible and it's just, I feel like home education kids are like… they’ve been through the same thing so they know how it feels so they’re nice to people. So yeah, I just feel like, when I walk into places, like, everyone’s got smiles on their faces, or even if like, I’m still a bit shy sometimes, but like when I go to groups like, people come up to me… (Beth, 14)
Beth suggested that sharing similar, sometimes negative, experiences at school made home educated adolescents more welcoming and highlighted the positive environments of the groups. This suggests that, for our participants, home education network meetings provided a space for young people to have positive interactions with others, which contrasted with previous school experiences for Beth and Alice. Overall, the mothers and adolescents experienced a strong, positive sense of community in their local home educating networks and found it easy to find and create socialising opportunities.
Diversity in social experiences
Both parents and adolescents expressed the opinion that socialising through home education could be better than the socialising typically experienced at school due to greater diversity. Diversity in socialising was predominantly discussed through the range of regular activities and different networks that the adolescents participated in, both within and outside of the home educating community:
Well like, I do my drama on a Saturday and then I do this drama, [theatre group], on a Monday, and then I go to one on a Friday, which is like home education, like it’s from little kids to older kids, so yeah. And sometimes the parents organise activities so like, I went to Crown Court and we did like a play… We’ve done like, raft building… I’ve done pottery… What else have I done? There’s so much I can’t even remember! There’s just like, different groups that come up and says, ‘oh, well we’re organising this that day’ and things like that. (Beth, 14)
Beth’s quote demonstrates that she chose from a range of social opportunities offered by different branches of the local home education network, which are comprised of different circles within the community. Beth also highlighted that a key difference from the school environment was that learning with the home educating community was more social:
So like, I’d say [home education] it’s more social than actual being in school because when you’re in school you have to do lessons and you’re not allowed… well you are allowed to talk… and then you only have fifteen minute breaks. But when you’re home educated, it’s learning but then like, when you’re doing things, you’re in groups and you’re doing teamwork and you meet lots of new people… (Beth, 14)
Beth discussed an increased quality and positivity of socialisation during learning experiences; she reflected on a more collective nature of learning, e.g. group work, which implies the feeling of a shared endeavour, possibly contrasting with her social experiences at school. In terms of the diversity of the community, Gina also felt that due to the individual nature of home education (e.g. the number of ways to practise it and the range of reasons for participating in it), the home educating community was comprised of people from a variety of backgrounds:
You just tend to mix with people from a wider geographical area, a wider… social strata? … And we’ve learnt so much about different people’s religions and things that I think you just end up a bit more accommodating, because there’s always somebody who can’t or won’t do something because of X, as opposed to, everybody has to do this. And the fact that you can opt out.… ‘Oh why isn’t such-and-such-a-bod here?’, ‘Oh well, it’s Ramadan’.… There’s no way I’d have a ton of Muslim friends I don’t think because it’s not a heavy Muslim area, so if my friends came from the school gate, you know, I wouldn’t have that network at all. (Gina, Sophie’s mother)
Gina highlighted the positive effects of learning and acceptance that a diverse community can encourage, and the diversity that she and her daughter experienced by socialising with families from different religions and socioeconomic groups. Participants also expressed the benefit of socialising with adults, particularly in a more egalitarian manner than a typical teacher-pupil relationship:
I don’t think a lot of people realise, the sort of socialising we do, like we drop [Alice’s] brother off at nursery … the teachers will talk to her, ask her how she is and she plays with some of the little ones.… That kind of social interaction is so important. Other children in school do not get but she gets that… I think that kind of, you know, interacting with younger children, adults, and adults who treat you like you’re important… (Maria, Alice’s mother)
Maria suggested the importance of quality communication with different age groups. One of the reasons that Maria and Lucy decided to remove their children from school was poor social experiences, which negatively impacted on their wellbeing. Maria expressed how Alice has thrived since leaving the school environment and being able to mix with a more diverse range of people:
[Alice] has learnt that she can communicate better with children who are different ages to her.… And I think she also realises that there are children who… do not have all the things that she likes about someone but she can still be friends with them…. And I think… with me there to help guide her, I think it’s helped her to form relationships that she wouldn’t otherwise have done.… (Maria, Alice’s mother)
Parents being present during groups and activities was identified as being typical of social experiences in the home educating community, and Maria highlighted this as a way to support her daughter in developing social relationships. This is probably easier to do for parents who are home educating than for teachers in the playground who may have oversight of a large number of children and may not notice those who are struggling. For the adolescents, greater diversity was expressed through the individuality of home educated children and how this diversity created less pressure to conform than perhaps conventionally schooled children:
I’d say home education kids are a bit more… they’re a bit more quirky.… They can be themselves, like, I found a lot when I was at school I couldn’t be myself and my mum didn’t like that, like, she wanted me to be myself. (Beth, 14)
Beth alluded to home education, with its community of varied personalities, as providing an environment to develop her individual identity. In summary, the adolescents and mothers felt that they socialised with a diverse group through home education networks, including different age groups, which they believed improved social skills and viewed as superior to the quality of social interaction experienced at school.
Importance of choice in socialising
Parents mainly held the authority with regard to making arrangements for their adolescent’s socialising, but they shared the decision-making with them, i.e. what opportunities their adolescent took part in. The adolescents often proposed ideas; for example, Sophie illustrated the adult-organised but child-directed approaches to choosing structured activities to participate in:
Often, mum finds [socialising opportunities] and then says, ‘Do you fancy that?’. … But often I get my own thought in it. … Or say, like with the trampolining, I only took that up quite recently but it was only because I had Wednesday and Friday doing nothing. … She said, ‘Do you want to do anything?’. I said, ‘Well I’d like to do trampolining but I know that’s impossible’, but then she found a group and I got to start it. (Sophie, 13)
This demonstrated that while her mother endeavoured to fill free days with social activities, Sophie was encouraged to choose the experiences that she participated in, and her mother even arranged an opportunity that her daughter did not think was feasible. Sophie reported the aspects of choice and freedom as being a highlight of home education in general:
You probably have a lot more freedom [in home education] I think, for me, freedom is a big thing as well. I think you should have a choice really, instead of having to be forced to go to school. (Sophie, 13)
Sophie suggested that home education perhaps contrasts to the school environment—despite never having been—in terms of the degree of freedom and choice that it offers. The associated freedom, choice and informality was reflected in the adolescents’ social lives. Every child had individual socialising preferences: Alice, for example, sometimes found socialising hard and disliked big social groups, which may be a product of her ASD (though this was not mentioned by Alice nor her mother). Home education removed the pressure for Alice to interact with those her own age and gave her the freedom to socialise on her own terms:
I find it really hard socialising with my year group; I find it easier with older children and younger children. Because [brother], who’s the youngest out of all of us, he’s my most… I’m more close to him than any others.… I just find that people my age are a bit more annoying and talkative than younger or older children. (Alice, 11)
This freedom of choice around socialising was seen as leading to more positive wellbeing and meant that Alice was able to socialise with young people of a range of ages. This may have increased the diversity of her social network. However, through the importance of choice, the mothers highlighted a limitation of socialising with the home education network: many of the available activities and groups were targeted at younger children:
I think older girls particularly find it hard to force friendships with other girls… And also teenage girls do not necessarily want to be forced to socialise with teenage boys… So, I think the activities that you do for teenagers have to be something less forced … so that they can go and do their own thing and maybe come together if they want to, rather than a group where you’re forcing them to work together and they might not want to. I think it’s quite difficult to know how to do that. (Maria, Alice’s mother)
Maria suggested that perhaps adolescents prefer a more informal kind of socialising, which is not currently as widely offered in their home educating networks. This is possibly because it is difficult to successfully set up such opportunities. However, Lucy reported that this was something she was exploring:
So recently, I’ve started communicating with someone that’s local to us about trying to set up a group just for teens. Some of the things as well, you know, I don’t mind myself trying to organise stuff. (Lucy, Beth’s mother)
Attempting to fill this gap for teenage socialising opportunities by setting up new groups is another example of the parents’ investment in promoting a fulfilling social life for their adolescents. On the whole, the adolescents felt that they experienced a high degree of choice in their social experiences in terms of the activities and their social contacts, and the mothers were eager to facilitate opportunities.
Overall, findings from the thematic analysis suggested broad agreement between the adolescents and their mothers about the benefits of home education on adolescents’ social lives. This is interesting as the participants were different in terms of their experiences and reasons for home education. Perhaps, this similarity reflects a shared social representation of socialisation within the broad home educating community as being a strong and diverse community that encourages free choice in social opportunities.