Home education in Quebec : family first
Article [Author's Original]
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Evaluation and research in education ; vol. 17, no. 2-3, pp. 112-131.Publisher(s)
RoutledgeKeywords
Abstract(s)
In Canada, until now, no studies have focused on the practice of home education in
the francophone province of Quebec. While the home-educating population in that
province is tangible, it has remained largely unknown. Quebec’s distinctive
character on three fronts political, historical and cultural make the application
of results from the rare Canadian studies or data from the US home-educating
population seem inappropriate. This research, conducted by questionnaire in 2003,
documented the sociodemographic characteristics of Quebec’s home-educating
families and their motivations for home education. Beginning with a portrait of
Quebec’s particular context, this article presents the motivations underlying the
choice of home education expressed by 203 Quebec families. The reasons why these
families have chosen to homeschool are many and diverse; parents’ rationales for
their choices are wide-ranging and multidimensional. One particularity of the results
is that no religious, philosophical or anti-state viewpoint seems to dominate the
combined discourse. Seven motivational factors for home education were identified.
Collectively, the respondents express the following as their main motivations for
home educating their children: a desire to pursue a family educational project; an
objection to the organisational structure of the school system; a desire to offer
curriculum enrichment; and finally, a preoccupation with their children’s socioaffective development.
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