{"title":"Invisible pedagogies in home education: Freedom, power and control","authors":"Amber Fensham-Smith","doi":"10.2478/jped-2021-0001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Home-schooling, or ‘elective home education’ (EHE) as it is more commonly known in the UK, invites contestation and controversies. Drawing on a UK-wide study of 242 families this paper explores a collection of EHE pedagogic practices within the socially situated contexts of doing everyday life. Through an application of Bernsteinian ideas, the findings surface some of the ways in which invisible pedagogies afforded children greater autonomy over the sequence and pace over their learning. It also considers how community development has helped some parents to harness the forms of capital which extend and remake new structures to strengthen the transmission of their social values. Contrary to the messages of EHE advocates, it shows that approaches inspired by unschooling are not devoid of power and control altogether. In considering the experiences of children and young people, the findings highlight the relative challenges and opportunities of transitioning from invisible pedagogies to formal qualifications in a context where access to public examinations can be difficult to achieve. Considering the tensions that these pedagogies reveal in the socialisation towards individualism, the author suggests solutions for questioning, challenging and bridging divides.","PeriodicalId":38002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pedagogy","volume":"21 1","pages":"5 - 27"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Pedagogy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jped-2021-0001","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Abstract Home-schooling, or ‘elective home education’ (EHE) as it is more commonly known in the UK, invites contestation and controversies. Drawing on a UK-wide study of 242 families this paper explores a collection of EHE pedagogic practices within the socially situated contexts of doing everyday life. Through an application of Bernsteinian ideas, the findings surface some of the ways in which invisible pedagogies afforded children greater autonomy over the sequence and pace over their learning. It also considers how community development has helped some parents to harness the forms of capital which extend and remake new structures to strengthen the transmission of their social values. Contrary to the messages of EHE advocates, it shows that approaches inspired by unschooling are not devoid of power and control altogether. In considering the experiences of children and young people, the findings highlight the relative challenges and opportunities of transitioning from invisible pedagogies to formal qualifications in a context where access to public examinations can be difficult to achieve. Considering the tensions that these pedagogies reveal in the socialisation towards individualism, the author suggests solutions for questioning, challenging and bridging divides.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Pedagogy (JoP) publishes outstanding educational research from a wide range of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical traditions. Diverse perspectives, critiques, and theories related to pedagogy – broadly conceptualized as intentional and political teaching and learning across many spaces, disciplines, and discourses – are welcome, from authors seeking a critical, international audience for their work. All manuscripts of sufficient complexity and rigor will be given full review. In particular, JoP seeks to publish scholarship that is critical of oppressive systems and the ways in which traditional and/or “commonsensical” pedagogical practices function to reproduce oppressive conditions and outcomes. Scholarship focused on macro, micro and meso level educational phenomena are welcome. JoP encourages authors to analyse and create alternative spaces within which such phenomena impact on and influence pedagogical practice in many different ways, from classrooms to forms of public pedagogy, and the myriad spaces in between. Manuscripts should be written for a broad, diverse, international audience of either researchers and/or practitioners. Accepted manuscripts will be available free to the public through JoP’s open-access policies, as well as featured in Elsevier''s Scopus indexing service, ERIC, and others.