Introduction

Home education is growing across Australia. In Queensland for example, the total numbers of homeschooled young people have grown by 162% in the 5 years between 2018 and 2022 (Queensland Government: Open Data Portal, 2023). The growth is most marked in the secondary years, with the numbers increasing by 204.5% (Queensland Government: Open Data Portal, 2023). In New South Wales (NSW), similarly, growth in home schooling has been exponential, with numbers more than doubling between the pre/post COVID-19 period. As reported in 2019, there were 5,698 children (representing 3,579 families) registered for home schooling. At the end of June 2022, there were 12,149 children (representing 7,724 families) registered (New South Wales Educational Standards Authority: NESA, 2022). In the state of Victoria, the numbers almost doubled in one year from 6,836 children (4,384 households) in 2021 to 11,332 children (7,291 households) in 2022 (Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority: VQRA, 2022). Nationally, home education is the fastest growing educational movement, albeit from a small base (Moir & English, 2022). Media coverage of the growth has emphasised the role of COVID (O’Flaherty, 2022a, b) but other factors also cited include the intersection of diagnoses of special educational needs, bullying and the lack of support for students in schools (English, 2022).

Homeschooling, more formally known as home education, is defined as children being educated outside a formal institution like a school. This definition differs from distance education because, in a home education setting, the parents are wholly responsible for what and how their child learns, whereas, in distance education, enrolment, curriculum and pedagogy are managed by teachers within an institution and lessons are delivered remotely, similar to the COVID lockdown schooling (English & Gribble, 2021). As noted by Moir and English (2022), the locus of control within home education remains with the parents (see also Moir, 2022). The various Education Acts, in all states and territories in Australia, state that parents are wholly responsible for the content, approaches, pedagogy, assessment of learning and provision of evidence to the department. As such, unlike distance education which relies on content, pedagogy, approaches and assessment of learning to be conducted by a teacher, in a home education setting, parents are able to decide the content that will be learned as well as the form of the pedagogy and the assessment that will take place in their home school.

In this paper, we explore the democratic potential of home education using unschooling as our lens. Unschooling is defined as learning without a curriculum, where the child directs and facilitates the learning (see Gray & Riley, 2013, 2015; Riley, 2018, 2020). As such, it is a type of education that negotiates with the child how they will learn as well as what they will learn and gives children a voice in their education. Advocates for this approach, such as Peter Gray (2011, 2017) suggest that children thrive in a setting where they are invited to be involved in the democratic potential of education by being equal participants in their learning and not being coerced in any way (see also McDonald, 2022). As such, Gray highlights the role of giving children agency in their education as central to education’s democratic potential. We begin by reviewing the literature on unschooling and the potential benefits it proposes for a more democratic, more agentive approach to education. Then, we then explore narratives of unschooling within home education practice. We then use data from extant research about home education to argue that the greatest threat to democracy for young people is the controlling, centralised nature of most curriculum settings in Australia and the ways that unschooling can, through its emphasis on participatory democracy and agency for young people, show schools, departments of education and their ministers, curriculum developers and the community a different way forward (see Riley, 2020 and Gray, 2017 for a discussion of how this goal can be achieved with unschooling). These narratives are contained in submissions to an inquiry into home education held in NSW in 2014. While we acknowledge the age of this data set, it is the only large-scale, credible and comprehensive source of information direct from home educating families about their practices. Simultaneously, this data source contains responses from regulators and legislators in equally frank response to home education and unschooling. Despite the considerable growth in homeschool enrolments post-Covid (see English, 2021a, b), there are presently no equivalent data-sets that can be drawn on for this analysis.

Unschooling and home education

There is no institutional form to home education, even less than there is to democratic schooling which has models (Sudbury Valley or Summerhill for instance), and groups that can be joined (such as ADEC – Australasian Democratic Education Community and IDEC – International Democratic Education Conference). While there are ‘gurus’ in all spaces, in particular John Holt who coined the term unschooling (see Gray & Riley, 2013), Dayna Martin (for radical unschooling, see Martin, 2020) and Sandra Dodd whose approach is more measured (see Rolstad & Kesson, 2013 for a discussion of Dodd’s work), the disparate nature of the approach and its placement in the family as opposed to an instructional setting means there are more opportunities to innovate and less reliance on approaches as traditional as Summerhill’s AS Neil or Daniel Greenberg from the original Sudbury movement. Similarly, as it is reasonably easy to be independent of government, for many unschooling families that means a direct decision to disengage from authorities (Krogh & Liberto, 2021) and, as such there are more freedoms and flexibilities to allow for innovations and daily, even hourly, shifts in approach.

Further, all forms of home education, whether formalised school at home or unschooling, do not look like school or distance education. Home education exists on a spectrum from highly structured, school-at-home approaches to educational approaches that do not follow a school-like structure, often called unschooling. Even those families who practice a school-at-home approach find it is much less structured than school. For us, unschooling is defined, in line with Riley (2018) as an approach to homeschooling whereby families, in conversation with their children, determine what they will learn, with learning often found in everyday life experiences. As such, unschooling is a philosophy of life, more than of schooling, because it posits that education cannot be separated from life and that all experiences, however banal or quotidian, have an educational potential. This point will be borne out in the data extracts below. Further, these experiences are about the child’s interest, the child’s strengths, the child’s personal learning potential and style (see Wheatley, 2002 for a discussion of the role of the child in unschooling families). The principles of unschooling are that (1) unschooling is child led, (2) unschooling is integrated into the family’s reality, and (3) unschooling is embedded in the child’s experiences, needs, interests and daily life.

In addition, we follow English’s (2021a, b) categorisation of home educators as either deliberate or accidental. At present, deliberate home educators comprise the smallest number of home educators in Australia and are, for religious or ideological reasons, opposed to institutionalisation in any form (see also Van Galen, 1991). Accidentals are, by contrast, not ideologically opposed to school. Many families who fall into the accidental category have tried schools and are home educating after an experience in schools (see English et al., 2023).

Home education takes place in a variety of settings following diverse ideologies, approaches, and resources (Cheng & Donnelly, 2019). This combination of characteristics allows for an extremely individualised education, tailored to the needs of the child who generally, although we concede not always, has a role in determining their education. In unschooling families, this control may extend to deciding what to eat, deciding when to sleep and deciding how much screen time is needed. Some families practice radical unschooling and do not restrict their children’s desires; however, some unschooling families may limit screen time and refuse requests to go back to school. In all cases, unschooling is a lived experience within an environment of potential educational experiences and opportunities. Home educators also use community resources as an integral part of the child’s education (Barratt-Peacock, 2003; Carpenter & Gann, 2016; Dioso-Lopez, 2021; Hanna, 2012; Jackson & Allan, 2010; Johnson, 1991; Thomas, 2016).

Home education does not sit entirely disconnected from broader legal and institutional structures. In most countries around the world there is a recognition of home education and different jurisdictions take different approaches to it. These approaches range from prohibition in Germany and Greece, local acceptance without formal endorsement in South Korea and Japan, and legislated facilitation in England, the USA, and Australia (see Krogh & Liberto, 2021 for a thorough discussion of the relationship between homeschool families and legislation). There is also a diversity of regulatory approaches in each of the different settings, with many countries having regulatory models that differ from state to state (Australia and USA are examples). In Australia, for example, while home education is a recognised and legal option in each state and territory, each has different requirements for registration. Noting two distinct approaches, NSW requires submission of a full education plan linking the NSW syllabuses and assessed by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) while in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) registration is automatically granted upon application. A follow-up meeting with the regulator is required, but education plans do not need to be created or submitted.

Democracy in education

As Dewey (1981) noted in Democracy and Education, there is a valuable place in democratic society for schools. He argued it was through schools that a democratic society would be born. He defined democracy as, “consist[ing] in having a responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups in which one belongs and in participating according to need in the values which the groups sustain” (Dewey, 1981, p. 327). It is this idea of democracy that is evident in many democratic schools and, as in the definition above, in unschooling families.

While we do not wish to debate the origins of democracy in education, its suitability or its alignment with liberal values, we would like to suggest that there are many thinkers in the democratic education space. Biesta, for example, suggested that education for democracy should provide a rational basis for ideas and reasoning, so that democratic decisions could be made. He suggested that participation, conversation and debate were cornerstones of a democratic education (see Biesta, 2015). Again, these three elements, (1) participation, (2) conversation and (3) debate are implied in the definition of unschooling above. Similarly, drawing on neo-marxist ideas, scholars such as Apple (2000) argue that a democratic education allows students to uncover the structures of domination and challenge legitimised forms of discourse. Through democratic education, young people become “activists in the struggle for the public good” (Sant, 2019, p. 676). Similarly, educationalists such as Freire have argued against the banking model of education where schooling is seen as a place in which students become passive receptacles of knowledge, having ideas and data dumped into their heads. The goal of this critique of education was to transform the oppressive social structures holding communities back from the truly democratic process of liberalising themselves from tyranny (see Freire, 1996).

However, scholars who advocate for democratic education, such as Apple, may also rail against private education, and do not see non-school or homeschool based democratic movements as legitimate (see Apple, 2000). Further, the main approach to democratic education practiced within mainstream schools is one which can be broadly categorised as education for, not within, democracy (see Sant, 2019). As such, due to the constraints on school management, particularly in Australia, including the strict definition of what is and what is not a school, it may be that the only space left to practise democracy of schooling is in the home education movement, whatever criticisms this movement may face from theorists such as Apple (again see Apple, 2000). Significantly, where schools try to implement fully democratic approaches, such as the Booroobin School in the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, it does not end well. The story of the Booroobin School is outside the scope of this paper but it is noted that the school’s founder was taken to the Supreme Court over his school and its failure, because of its Sudbury style approach, to align with what is considered a legitimate school in Australia (see The Sunshine Coast Daily, 2005; Australian Broadcasting Corporation: ABC, 2005).

The approach that unschoolers practise in relation to democracy includes the question of whether or not to engage with authorities (see Johnno, n.d., for a discussion of registration, or the choice not to). Further, unschoolers consider the child’s needs and interests in considerations of what is learned, how it is learned and how much agency and power a learner has over their learning. In what follows, accounts of unschoolers provided in submissions to the 2014 Inquiry into Homeschooling in NSW are discussed.

Personal public data

The data that informs our discussion is drawn from a public inquiry into “home schooling” in the state of NSW, Australia, the Select Committee on Home Schooling: Home Schooling in New South Wales (hereafter, the Inquiry). Established in May of 2014, and completed in December of that year, the Inquiry followed intense lobbying by home educators from around the state. The lobbying was triggered by changes to publicly-provided information regarding registration for home education produced by the regulatory agency (at that time known as the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW, or BOSTES) and negative registration experiences. The agitation involved letter-writing to, and meeting with, members of parliament, as well as the presentation of a 10,000 signature petition to the parliament (Select Committee into Home Schooling, 2014). The Inquiry’s terms of reference included direct examination of the registration process and regulatory framework about which home educators were unhappy. At the same time, the opportunity was taken to more broadly explore issues and processes associated with home education including demographics, reasons and methods employed, child educational, wellbeing and safety outcomes and support needs of home educating families. This data set, as noted above, is nearly 10 years old and does not account for the change in the home education cohort post-COVID. It is, however, the only large-scale source of detailed information on home education practice that can be drawn on at present. As will be seen in the extracts below, the comments are of a general nature and serve to establish what we mean by unschooling and how it is enacted in particular families. In this way, the age of the data does not affect its use here.

The Inquiry received 276 separate submissions, of which three were from government departments or agencies – Department of Education, Department of Family and Community Services, and BOSTES. One submission was from the NSW Teachers Federation. Apart from these three official items the rest of the submissions (n = 273) were from individuals who home educated, people who interacted with home educators (such as family members or friends), businesses which provided services or resources to home educators, or support groups and associations that represented the interests of home educators. One submission, that of Hear Our Voices Australia (HOVA), presented its own collection of submissions (n = 72) from individuals who wanted to submit anonymously, yet have their content on the record, meaning the actual number of individual submissions was 348. Of the 273 separate submissions, many were confidential (n = 19) and still others suppressed the authors’ names (n = 129). This signals the private nature and the personal dimension of the submissions received. While the submissions to the Inquiry represented a broad group of parties, it could be said that the bulk of the submissions and, therefore, the body of data for this paper, come from insider perspectives on home education, albeit from a predominantly parent/adult perspective.

Given the general paucity of qualitative research into home education in NSW (and similarly the rest of the country) these submissions and the broader set of documents represent a rich source of information about home education, largely from the perspective of those who practise it. It is noted that all three authors of this paper participated in the Inquiry, two wrote submissions and two participated as witnesses in the public hearing process.

Public inquiries are a deeply held tradition in Westminster-based democratic models reaching back to the eleventh century in England and transported with the colonisation process to countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada (Swain et al., 2018). Swain et al. (2018) propose that inquiries have a complicated place in the democratic process, having the potential for a thorough, truth-finding investigation of a matter of public importance as well as having the potential for being a tactic for delay and avoidance of difficult political issues. Following a deep investigation of Australian federal parliamentary committees and their inquiries into Australia’s counter-terrorism laws, Moulds (2020) argued that while not a perfect system, committees are essential to the democratic and ‘rights-protecting’ process of Australian society. That members of the public can access and present their views to inquiry bodies alongside academics, public servants and other interested parties is a central aspect of this democratising potential and is why this data set has been used here.

Public inquiries also have a robust history as a data source for social science research. Hide (2022), for example, identified the ways in which public inquiry documents have been used to trace the cultures of neglect and abuse that arose in psychiatric hospitals in England. Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Assault has been fertile ground for research by historians, social scientists, religious scholars and educationists. These were areas covered by the special edition of Child Abuse and Neglect (74) edited and introduced by Wright et al. (2017).

Method

For this research, all published documents from the public inquiry were retrieved from the Parliamentary Inquiry website. This included the 249 available submissions (all submissions which were not confidential) made to the Inquiry, the transcripts of the three Inquiry hearings, the responses to questions taken on notice, as well as additional other documents, the Inquiry’s final report and the Government’s response to the recommendations from the Inquiry. In addition, a small number of news reports from the time that also mentioned unschooling were collected. In total there were 256 documents. These were imported into the data management software NVIVO to assist with the analysis.

Once in NVIVO, the text search option was used to identify references to ‘unschool’, ‘natural learning’, ‘autonomous’, ‘child led’ and ‘interest led’ approaches and, finally, ‘democratic’. The broad and diverse references found in relation to each of these items were read for their immediate meaning and their broader context. This data underlines the specific interests of this research—the understanding parents and others have of unschooling’s contribution to a democratic education, the ways in which regulation and unschooling interact and the nature of the discussion between law-makers and home educators about unschooling and its contribution and regulation. The media reports were read for their framing of unschooling and consideration of how this reflected a broader conception of the issues.

In the content that follows, three themes that emerged from the data are discussed:

  1. 1.

    The various meanings attached to ‘unschooling’ (and related terms) and the place of children’s agency in these accounts.

  2. 2.

    Perspectives of home educators, compared with those of lawmakers and regulators.

  3. 3.

    What happened when regulators and home educators interacted over unschooling.

Unschooling as a concept

Participants in the Inquiry used a series of terms to identify educational approaches akin to unschooling. While unschooling was the most frequently used term, others included ‘natural learning’, ‘child led’, ‘interest led’, ‘student led’ and ‘autonomous education’. While unschooling has the potential to centre institutionalisation (unschool) as its point of educational difference, it is the major term used in the space thanks to the work of John Holt (see Gray & Riley, 2013). However, the other terms used in the Inquiry documentation centre the child or the learning approach to a greater or lesser extent suggesting a greater role for the child, greater agency for learners and the potential for a more democratic process. As such, there is a sense that the democratising potential of unschooling lies in its capacity to centre the learner, not the institution or the curriculum, in all learning practices which are embedded in life, not a particular geographic place (“our learning space”) or series of events/times (“we do maths now”). In the content that follows, unschooling is used as the umbrella term when referring to this series of potential approaches, unless the other options are specifically named.

It is noted in Inquiry data that, to a large extent, submissions used the terms unschooling or natural learning as descriptors for a family’s educational method without substantial elaboration of how they unschooled. Others, however, provided some description of their method of unschooling. For example:

We are a natural learning family and believe that children’s learning is innate and if nurtured will flourish and this is definitely borne out over the last few years. My children learn from all facets of life, as do I! Key learning areas are easily covered by applying real life to skills learnt with day-to-day living. (Submission 104)

An important ingredient to the unschool/natural learning combination was adult engagement with the child. This component involved the educator’s knowledge of the child and attention to their interests, along with regular and close interaction with them. For example:

I have the flexibility to teach to my child’s special interests, and my relationship with my children fuels my desire to learn alongside them. (Submission 171)

Children’s agency in relation to their learning was a strong sub-theme that ran across these descriptions of different learning approaches. It was even more present in those submissions that talked about autonomous learning and child-led approaches. While not consistently the case, autonomous learning centred on children directing the learning process as strongly as possible. Some were specific about this element, as can be seen in the example:

Our approach was autonomous, in that we allowed the children to set their own educational direction. (Submission 172Footnote 1)

A further example of child centredness:

[My eldest] has recently embarked on reading his first novel by himself - his choice? The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien! He tells me that it might take quite a long time, but he wants to read it all himself because then, when he reaches the end, he'll be much better at reading! This is just one of the things he has chosen to do for himself and illustrates how intrinsic motivation works in child-led learning. (Submission 172)

Submissions addressing unschooling tended to challenge the notion that learning content is what matters in education. Rather, descriptions of negotiated learning processes that reflected democratic education principles were often present. Submissions tended to emphasise cultivating a love of learning and, more broadly, the attainment of a set of applicable skills such as self-motivation, cooperation and perseverance. They also drew attention to how basic skills such as literacy and numeracy were learnt coincidentally. Summing up multiple perspectives, one author wrote:

Autonomously educated children may not cover the same material as they would in school but there is no doubt they acquire an education which fully prepares them for entry into formal education or work. (Submission 172)

Unlike many stereotypes that persist about unschooling (see Riley, 2020), it was noted in submissions that instruction from a trusted other, a teacher/tutor/parent, was an important part of learning for unschooled children. However, this learning support can differ from what would be seen in a mainstream classroom. For example:

Rather than [the New South Wales Department of Education] aiming to coerce home-educating families to implement a formula designed for schools with classrooms of twenty plus children, they could learn from our learning experiences and rethink how natural learning, flexible delivery and inquiry-led learning may reinvent schools to foster children’s enthusiasm for learning and their creative intelligence. Family-based educators need to have the freedom to deliver individualised and tailored educational programs. (Submission 178)

Within the content of the Inquiry, most submissions from parents and non-academic parties did not make explicit links between unschooling and the democratic education method. Submissions and other content to the inquiry frequently indicated links between unschooling (in all its namings) and democratic education principles such as children’s interests guiding educational process or content, children having a voice in relation to the process or content of their education and children’s choice guiding how families approached education. Some submissions, for example, reported a child’s decision to return to school, in itself an embodiment of democracy in education. This return was often as a means to achieve a specific end goal such as more direct university entry. For example:

In our own experience, having completed Year 10 as an unschooler, our eldest child decided to pursue formal Year 11 and 12 studies with a heavy emphasis on sciences for which a child cannot sit exams if home educated. (Submission 264)

Thus far, home educators’ perspectives on the benefits of unschooling have been presented. In what follows, the second theme is explored. This theme highlighted the differences between the perspectives of the home education community and the lawmakers in relation to the purpose of an education. It is significant, from a democracy in education position, that parents’ and regulators’ interpretations of a ‘child’s best interests’ differed (Liberto, 2016). Parents believed they were best placed to make choices that suited their children’s learning needs, whereas lawmakers were anxious that all children experienced the same education. As such, tensions between these two groups, and a historical distrust of regulators, persisted.

Perspective of home educators versus lawmakers and regulators

Within the submissions to, and discussions within, the Inquiry parents referred to democracy frequently. This was primarily within the context of a parental right to choose home education as an option for their children. For example:

Intelligent and committed parent-educators should, I believe, have the democratic right to make decisions regarding the content and outcomes of their children's education program, in order to better meet their current needs and allow them to contribute more effectively to society in the future. (Submission 87)

Homeschooling must remain a choice for all parents. It is not the mark of a free and democratic society to force parents to have their children educated by a system which often goes against all of their personal beliefs, standards, morals and ethics. (Submission 84)

Links between democracy and education were made primarily by researchers who were engaged with/by the Inquiry, such as this article’s lead author who, when asked about the apparent dangers of unschooling where it was interpreted that children were ‘setting the agenda’ replied:

It is really not much different to child led approaches in democratic schools where the teacher sits down with the students and says, "What would you like to learn this semester?" Then we map the curriculum back on to it. (NSW Inquiry Transcript – 8 September 2004)

Unschooling was a significant point of discussion among many of the submissions, in particular in relation to regulatory processes to which all home educators are legally subject. To illustrate, submissions noted the requirements to pre-determine learning outcomes, or plan an education structure designed to meet outcomes. The extended extract below shows a parent perspective on this process:

The current process offers a top down approach, which is directed more by processes than by care for children. In my experience, APs [Authorised Persons] have numerous boxes to tick. Despite an AP witnessing and engaging with children who have obviously been learning and are physically and mentally thriving, a registration can hang in the balance over a lack of timetable. … There is a huge diversity in the styles of home education and the education philosophies followed. Within my own home there have been periods in which I have taught through unit studies, natural learning, or been text book centered. I also vary styles between children. Consequently, it is not always possible to adhere to the NSW Curriculum and meet all the stage outcomes. Personally, I do not see this as a problem. I have witnessed how despite apparent neglect to teach a subject, children will learn about it. I have also learnt that despite endless teaching a child may fail to remember or “get” a concept. While, APs may be aware of some home education philosophies we have to fit our reporting to the school model, which is not always easy to achieve. (Submission 73)

These were not abstract concerns. As one submission described, during the reregistration home visit the Authorised Person reviewed their evidence of learning activities and was very pleased with the material. The links to key learning areas were clearly shown. Yet, when it came to presenting the educational plan for the future, the unschooling approach these parents had taken was not accepted by the education assessor and their registration was at risk of being rejected. Their submission reads:

When I showed her the future program that I had made for the kids she told me I didn't have it linked to the outcomes. I told her that I had never had anything linked to outcomes each of the last three times I had registered. I asked her if something had changed and she said no. After this she told me she would not be able to register me due to my not having the work linked to outcomes. (Submission 209)

By contrast, the lawmakers who made up the Inquiry Committee showed an unfamiliarity with the notion of unschooling and suspicion, even a direct hostility, towards it. They appeared not to understand the democratic potential of all education, and did not evidence a familiarity with the work of Apple or Biesta, let alone Dewey and Freire. The following sequence of questions are taken from the transcript of an Inquiry hearing where a home education researcher waqs being questioned:

Question: I do not understand, because every family does that anyway, what is different with this? (Committee Member KC)

Question: There is no school that goes with it. I understand, Dr Jackson, there is no structured learning involved, is that correct? (Committee Member JK)

Comment: There is no structured timetable, everything is an experience and learning. (Committee Member PG)

Comment: You will have difficulty convincing me that you will do the HSC [Higher School Certificate] on that model. (Committee Member TK)

Question(s): Do you have any concerns that that model is not teaching children to develop their own internal disciplines? … There are many things we do in life that we do not want to do. … Are you concerned that unschooled children do not have that? … Where do they get that capacity to face up to difficult challenges? (Committee Member JK)

These quotes firstly show a broad misunderstanding of home education, including the particular reasons parents choose it and the outcomes they hope for. That is, young people and their parents may not be interested in gaining the Higher School Certification offered by mainstream schools, which is not available to home educators in any event. Further, it is by no means the only avenue to tertiary education (see Moir, 2022). Significantly, the committee members seemed to show a preference for a traditional mainstream school to university pathway, without a consideration of alternative measures of an education. Finally, the notion of school as a site in which children are trained to endure externally imposed requirements is introduced. During a later exchange with a different academic, similar themes were introduced including children needing to develop ‘a work ethic’ and resilience, and questioning the potential for children to be able to have meaningful agency in their educational process:

Question: All that I have read around unschooling and child-led parenting seems to be the reverse. It is not about saying, "You can focus on this thing that we are learning about and you can take as much time as you need on it." If it is allowing the children to set the agenda, there must be a risk of children missing out on learning important things if they are only focusing on the things that might occur to the child, for example. (Committee Member AS)

Comment: When children are learning about the work ethic and how to apply themselves to learn things, things that are difficult is a disincentive and you need to learn resilience and perseverance. I do not see how that is developed through everything I have read about unschooling. It seems to me that, in fact, it is potentially a recipe for disaster, unless you are dealing with significantly brighter than average pupils and their parents who will succeed in any system. (Committee Member AS)

In contrast with the submission perspectives showing a commitment to developing children’s love of learning and the ability to learn in everyday situations, these comments suggest that education should be about content and perseverance. While this was not a universal perspective, it was highly influential. The final report of the Inquiry was ambivalent about unschooling and recommended that the regulator should invest in research into the methods and outcomes of unschooling. To date, this research has not been undertaken.

Interactions between home educators and regulators

Submissions to the Inquiry showed that unschoolers approach their learning in diverse ways including learning from everyday activities such as cooking, shopping and interacting with other people. The content also showed how children’s interests might guide the learning/education process. At the same time, lawmakers did not see the legitimacy of this as a model for children’s education. The data also demonstrated that a lack of understanding of unschooling, by regulatory bodies and other mainstream systems, was a common experience of home educators and this impacted on their interactions with the registration system.

These days getting reregistered if you are following a classical curriculum, a Charlotte Mason inspired curriculum, an unschooled approach or anything else that doesn't fit neatly into the BOS [Board of Studies] curriculum is very difficult. (Submission 175)

Unschooling not being understood, and expectations of having this educational approach rejected in the registration process, flowed on to active mistrust of the broader regulatory system, as below.

The registration system in NSW is a waste of homeschooling families' time. Itʼs stressful, doesnʼt fit at all with any kind of ʻnatural learningʼ approach such as unschooling, and quite frankly any unschooler would be naive not to be concerned about their application being rejected. Parents who register are required to follow a set curriculum, when unschoolers DONʼT follow curriculum. (Submission 172)

The evidence from the Inquiry showed that such concerns were not unfounded. The then director of BoSTES, when responding to the question from an Inquiry Committee member, “Do I take it that you would agree that if you are unschooling you cannot achieve registration?” said (after first saying “I’m not sure that I completely understand the term”):

The way it has been described to me it would not appear to be standards and evidence-based. It would not be something that would demonstrably involve the delivery of courses taught in accordance with Board syllabuses. (Inquiry Transcript 7th October 2014)

Submissions from unregistered home educating families indicated that positions such as this were directly implicated in their choice not to engage with BoSTES. Significantly, not to engage with regulatory authorities is still a choice, albeit an illegal one. Evidence presented to the Inquiry by the Home Education Association, a national support and advocacy organisation, which included input from multiple families, showed a common perspective from unregistered families on this issue:

“Because we unschool the whole process of having to submit learning plans, endure visits from potentially hostile Authorised Persons, and submit progress reports are non-productive. Time that should be spent facilitating our children's learning will instead be spent on administrative tasks.” (Submission 145)

Similarly.

… we have found ourselves in the difficult position of believing that we need to remain unregistered. This way we can pursue natural learning in a way which we could not do in all likelihood under the current system of registration … (Submission 172)

These data show that the commitment to the unschooling method was so strong for some families that they were willing to put themselves outside the law to pursue it. This situation is likely unchanged post-COVID with more families likely to not register their children for home education (English & Gribble, 2021; English et al., 2022). It is also likely to be a situation that is repeated in other states and territories.

The data from the submissions that have been presented above suggest that the unschooling home educator will allow, encourage and support a child to identify and pursue their interests in a particular area in order to develop expanding expertise and skills in relation to that topic. Through this process, the child is seen to gain mastery in that area, as well as learning multiple, relevant, generalisable skills that have broader application. Additionally, a central part of the approach is significant adult engagement with the child. This component involves parent/educator knowledge of the child and attention to their interests, along with regular and close interaction with them. However, as committee members and school curricula did not validate this approach or value this learning (especially as affective criteria have been removed from various syllabus documents), what families presented as evidence of a positive education model appeared unappreciated. This data shows families seeking to implement a program of education they see as being in the best interests of their child finding themselves outside the mainstream conception of what education is and can be.

Discussion

Our findings from the submissions to the Inquiry suggest there are major differences between regulators’ views on democracy in education and their beliefs about what education looks like and those of home educators, especially those home educators who identify as unschoolers, natural learners or child-led learners. The data above suggests that there is limited space in the regulatory approaches valued by departments of education staff for democracy to be implemented or valued.

There are three major findings here. One, a belief that a participatory approach can lead to a legitimate education is not held by regulators. This finding can be seen in all three themes. There was a sense that participatory approaches cannot lead to a thorough education. This was due to a lack of trust in young people’s learning through an alternative approach that does not predetermine outcomes, and a lack of trust in parents to deliver a quality education. This finding was seen in parents’ statements about the education their children were receiving in comparison to some committee members' and regulators' disbelief that this could occur. The comment about a lack of teaching internal discipline is one instance illustrating this. This is a problematic opinion, not least because it is questionable whether internal discipline can be taught. There was also a strong disconnect between what parents thought was a serious, valuable and effective education and the mainstream belief that one point in a child’s life, the conclusion of their senior phase of learning, was a measure of education’s effectiveness; the use of the term ‘HSC’ and a reference to that qualification strongly indicates that this point was significant to committee members. A strong institutionalisation was evident in committee members’ questions and comments. Dewey’s (1981) definition of democratic education as one in which the educated share, according to capacity, a sense that they are able to direct the activities of the groups in which they belong was not evident in the committee’s comments, even where it was strongly evident in parents’ responses. As such, there is no sense that the education authorities shared any belief in participatory democracy as a significant and core outcome of an education in NSW; instead, in this respect, an education was about certification and credentialism.

Two, there is a lack of understanding about what unschooling actually means to the families who practice it and why they might decide to follow that approach. While there were a variety of terms for the approach that was, in essence, child led and participatory, there was no data that suggested that the committee members appreciated the value or importance of children’s participation in the educational process. The goals of educationalists such as Biesta cannot be realised in a situation where young people have no agency and where authorities value the ‘banking’ (as per Freire, 1996) model which does not allow that young people can be participants in their own education. Apple (see 2000), who is a proponent of democracy in education, albeit confined to a public model, argued that education should be about uncovering the models of domination and the structures that confine freedom. The parents in their submissions seemed to support this notion; the committee did not appear to value it in their comments and questions.

Three, for regulators, schooling which is directed to learning pre-determined content, focused on testing and qualifications, continues to be held up as the principal model of education. At the same time, alternative approaches founded on more democratic education principles are dismissed as not in children’s best interests. This final finding suggests that without radical upheaval there is no space for democracy and democratic approaches in mainstream education, where a nationalised curriculum and constant testing are the norm (see Appel, 2020 for a discussion of the impact of these approaches on teachers’ work). The philosophers of education cited here have argued that school needs a rethink. We too would suggest this renewal is needed.

There are limitations to this paper. One is that there was a heavy reliance on the Inquiry documentation that is now nearly 10 years old. The other is that follow up with new families, especially those who have started home educating after COVID-19, would be useful to see if democratic principles also underpin their education approaches. Hearing from children about unschooling experiences would also enrich research in this field.

If schools want to keep students, both from choosing to homeschool and refusing attendance, and if they want to attract and retain quality teachers, a rethink along more democratic principles is needed. It may be that home educators, and in particular unschoolers/natural learners, with their radical rejection of schooling as a model, might provide a pathway for legislators, regulators and administrators to consider how it might be possible to implement a more democratic model of education. We would argue that a democratic education is always undertaken in participation with young people, based on their interests and in a way that meets them where they are, not forcing them towards a curriculum which is set by the regulator.