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Every year new research papers on the subject of home education are published which continue to shed light on what is fast becoming a popular and effective form of alternative education. Although the outcomes and experiences of home educators are diverse, there are some shared experiences and benchmarks emerging which can be seen as common factors. Home education is blazing a trail that challenges the assumptions underpinning school-based education.

The points in this article are pertinent and worth considering next time we all reach for 'research' to support our stance or opinions (on any topic, though this deals with home education). Having said that, research is all we've got and we need more, particularly unbiased university based studies. Homeschooling Studies And Statistics (And Why You Shouldn't Trust Them)

Why Families Homeschool by Beverley Paine is a brief list of reasons and characteristics drawn from various research studies into home education: www.theeducatingparent.com.com/articles/reasons.html.

Glenda Jackson's comprehensive Summary of Australian Research on Home Education: is an extensive list of three decades of Australian research papers into home education. Glenda does research herself: Fundamental elements in examininga child’s right to education: A studyof home education research andregulation in Australia
Glenda Jackson and Sonia Allan and More than One Way to Learn': Home Educated Students Transitions Between Home and School
www.homeschoolaustralia.com/research/GJtransmissions.pdf.

Also look at Ann Zeise's collection of mostly USA based research papesrs on her website A2ZHomeschoo. It is regularly updated and organised well.

Wendy Priesnitz has also collated an extensive list of quality Canadian research papers on home education on her Life Learning site.

The How and Why of Australian Home Education by John Barratt-Peacock BA., PGCE., BA., MSc, PhD, available through www.home-ed.edu.au .

Psychologist Peter Gray conducts research into the outcomes of unschooling.

Home Schooling and Legislated Education , by Terry Harding and Anne Farrell,
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/287/1/Harding.farrellANZELA03.pdf .

A Study of Parents' Conceptions of their Roles as Home Educators of their Children, by Terrence John Arthur Harding, BA, DipEd, DipCDP, MEd (QUT)

Investigating young children's perceptions of homeschooling by Donna Broadhurst: http://www.aare.edu.au/99pap/bro99413.htm .

Alan Thomas, 'Informal learning, home education and homeschooling', the encyclopaedia of informal education , http://www.infed.org/biblio/home_education.htm .

NSW Board of Studies 2004 paper examining home educators responses to questionnaire about registration application guidelines/regulations

Robert Kunzman's Homeschooling Research and Scholarship page is a good place to start to get a perspective on the state of home education in the USA.

NHERI - National Home Education Research Institute is a conservative American centre for research into home education. Publishers research conducted by Brian Ray, including papers on adults who were home educated. www.nheri.org

The Fraser Institute in Canada published a report called Home Schooling from Extreme to mainstream: www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/homeschool.pdf

Homeschooling - Back to the Future? by the Cato Institute, examined the growing numbers of home educated children attending Universities and concluded that home education could produce superior results at a fraction of the cost to the state: www.ontariohomeschool.org/oacas2.html

The USA Homeschool Legal Defence Association includes reference to many studies on their web site: http://www.hslda.org/research/default.asp .

A search for 'research' on the UK's Education Otherwise website will turn up links to research studies completed in that country: www.education-otherwise.org .

Homeschool Works by Dr Lawrence Rudner, Director of ERIC Clearing House on Assessment and Evaluation http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/rudner1999/default.asp

Beverley Paine is a mother of three young adults and a prolific writer of homeschooling articles and has published several titles. More articles and essays can be found in her books, available from the Always Learning Books online bookstore.

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Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.

Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.

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We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine

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Home education is a legal alternative
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