Gifted and Home-Educated in Australia

Abstract

A recent survey of the home-education community in Australia sought to identify the reasons why parents/guardians made the decision to home educate their children (Slater et al., 2022). Within the broader sample of 385 parents/guardians of 676 currently home educated children in Australia, the parents/guardians of 81 children cited the child being gifted as a reason for the child being home educated. Completed survey data returned by these parents/guardians were analysed. Thereafter, a sub-sample of these survey participants, comprising 16 parents/guardians of home-educated gifted children, were interviewed. Thematic and content analysis of all collected data indicated that the educational and emotional wellbeing of the child was a key motivator for home-educating. The reasons cited included the belief that there was a lack of provision of an appropriate curriculum, failure to appropriately differentiate and/or provide acceleration options, and a lack of understanding and ability to cater to the psychosocial and emotional needs of gifted students, in schools.