Home Education in Ireland: The Who, The Why, and The How. A Feasibility Study

In Ireland, there remains a distinct lack of home education research compared to other European countries, leaving the Irish cohort governed by regulations uninformed by published, peer-reviewed domestic empirical research. This feasibility study sought to provide a snapshot into who Ireland’s home educators are, what motivates them to home educate and how they practice this educational alternative. These findings from a survey involving parents of 33 home-educated children suggest that Irish home educators are: politically liberal, economically disadvantaged, with low vaccination rates, yet emulate conservative dynamics: nuclear families, traditional gender roles, highly educated, and deeply spiritual. Parents are predominantly motivated to home educate by the desire to provide individualised education and they facilitated education through varied methods, with the child’s well-being a central focus. Given the small sample size and use of nonprobability sampling, the findings are limited; nevertheless, they provide for the first time in history a window into the who, the why, and the how of Ireland’s home educators. Further research with a broader participant base is recommended to better understand the diverse characteristics of Ireland’s home-educating community.