Thesis
"It all comes down to love." Conversations with home-educating Mothers: A critical ecofeminist autoethnography
Southern Cross University
Master of Education (MEd), Southern Cross University
2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25918/thesis.513
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Abstract
Every practicing mother is a teacher, but not every mother takes on the responsibility of teaching their child/ren throughout the “schooling” years. Home education is currently on the rise across the world, including in Australia, where it is becoming a topic of hot debate. In Darumbal country, Central Queensland (so-called), little is understood about why and how parents, particularly mothers, choose to home-educate their children, and what implications that choice has for women’s lives. This research attempts to provide some answers to these questions through conversations (rather than interviews per se) with eight individual mothers. Warm data from social media, blogs, podcasts, the Australian Homeschooling Summit, books written by home-educating parents and artefacts from my life history also inform this research. This study adds to what is known about home educating mothers in Australia, contributing to both the field of education and the field of maternal studies, specifically matricentric feminism. It gives voice to those whose opinions and experiences are not often heard about or considered in our community; so-called “stay-at-home” full-time mothers, half of whom also manage full or part-time careers. This research highlights the maxim that “the personal is political,” as power flows through this discourse in terms of how much control we as parents have over our children and how much control culture and governments have over our children <em>and<em/> us. Desire for freedom rests in the heart of this thesis.
These words present a critical ecofeminist autoethnography from the standpoint of a panpsychic witch, foregrounding my experience as a white settler mother who home-educated in the 1990s for four years, before opting for a career in public education. This thesis is presented in a non-traditional manner, using poetry and writing as methods of inquiry; a postqualitative thread to complete the unschooling braid.
Details
- Title
- "It all comes down to love." Conversations with home-educating Mothers: A critical ecofeminist autoethnography
- Creators
- Nicola Apps
- Contributors
- Liz Mackinlay (Supervisor) - Southern Cross UniversityLisa Siegel (Supervisor) - Southern Cross UniversityLouise Gwenneth Phillips (Supervisor) - Southern Cross University
- Awarding Institution
- Southern Cross University; Master of Education (MEd)
- Theses
- Master of Education (MEd), Southern Cross University
- Publisher
- Southern Cross University
- Number of pages
- [xvii], 239
- Identifiers
- 991013309327502368
- Copyright
- © Nicola Apps 2025
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Resource Type
- Thesis