A common theme in the literature on care-giving is the issue of "hidden" carers, that is, people who undertake caring roles and responsibilities, yet do not identify themselves as carers. One reason people do not recognise themselves as carers relates to the nature of the caring relationship. When providing care for a family member,…

The digital revolution has hit education, with more and more classrooms plugged into the whole wired world. But are schools making the most of new technologies? Are they tapping into the learning potential of today's Firefox/Facebook/cell phone generation? Have schools fallen through the crack of the digital divide? In "Rethinking Education in the…

This paper suggests that rather than criminalising or pathologising truancy as a "deviant" behaviour in need of either treatment or punishment, truancy should be considered as a rational enactment of dissatisfaction with State educational provision. It should be of little surprise that attempts to "solve" the truancy…

This report updates two previous reports: "Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993 to 1999" (Bielick and Chapman 2003) and "Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993 to 2003" (Tice et al. 2006). Using data from the National Household Education Survey (NHES) of the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education…

Raising any child is challenging for parents, but raising a gifted child can be especially demanding. Parents benefit from quality information about giftedness as well as effective parenting strategies for working with very bright youngsters. Parents may wish to better motivate their gifted children, helping them to take personal responsibility…

This interview-based study suggests that the home schooling movement represents another literacy crisis. Home-schooled students may define their commitments to the public sphere in ways that conflict with the assumptions of community literacy and other pedagogical projects. Home schoolers may adopt the values of the "literacy frontier,"…

Virtual charter schools, emerging in the 1990s, are a recent development in the education field and reflect today's technology-oriented society. This study examined existing data to evaluate what, if any, difference existed between students who attended public school and those who were homeschooled prior to entering the virtual charter school. …

In this essay James Conroy raises the question of how far the state should engage in the rearing of children, looking in particular at homeschooling as a site for contestation. He considers this question by looking specifically at recent developments in the United Kingdom around the elision of child safeguarding issues with concern about the…

The author discusses his book "Homeschool: An American History," and offers four primary impetuses for the current status of homeschooling as a political movement. First, he writes, social and political changes of the second half of the twentieth century partnered radical leftists who wanted nothing to do with conventional America and conventional…

Getting anyone's attention is a prerequisite for being able to hold a good conversation with him or her, as anyone who parents or works with preteens or teenagers knows. It is absolutely necessary with individuals on the autistic spectrum because the achievement of what is called "joint attention" (the ability of children to respond to another…

In this accessible and honest look at homeschooling, the author explores the diverse faces of homeschooled students and the ways in which it can help children with special learning needs. She corrects misconceptions through profiles of diverse families and addresses the changing and complex needs of children today. This book addresses the major…

Homeschoolers are achieving better results with less money than their public school counterparts. This multiple case study explored the perceptions of homeschooled college students and graduates and their reasons for their academic and social successes. An interview-based, qualitative design was implemented to uncover themes and directions for…

The topic for this article is parents' participation and willingness to participate in formalized home-school cooperation. The analyses are based on a nationwide survey among parents in lower secondary schools in Norway. A main finding is that parental involvement practices differ according to parents' level of education in the sense that parents…

Parents have a fundamental right to guide the upbringing of their children, and government has an obligation to respect that right. The nonpublic school community in the United States provides parents with important options for the education of their children. Faith-based and nonsectarian private schools, along with a growing number of children…

This Issue Brief provides estimates of the number and percentage of homeschooled students in the United States in 2007 and compares these estimates to those from 1999 and 2003. From 1999 to 2007, the number of homeschooled students in the United States increased, as did the homeschooling rate. In 2007, parents homeschooled their children for a…