An exploration of the information literacy experiences of home

educating families

Jess Elmore University of Sheffield

1st July 2015

Context MethodsFindingsCommunities of practiceImportance of reflection

All images credited at end

Information literacy as a practice

I understand information literacy as a set of activities that constitute the ability to find, use and share information in a particular context.

I see information literacy as constructed by and from a context not as an individual set of skills and recognise that it includes different ways of knowing rather than the purely cognitive.

This definition is informed by Lloyd’s work but I am still defining and re-defining my understanding of information literacy.

Home education

Lots of unknownsLegal in all of UKBetween 42,000 and 150,000 HE children in EnglandGaining in popularityIn England and Wales families have a duty to provide “a suitable education” but this isn’t definedLots of different reasons to home educateLots of different kinds of home educatorsLimited research (mainly US)

Home education and styles of learning

There are lots of different ways that home educated children learn. Can be understood as a continuum between a structured “school like” education and “autonomous” education which has no timetable, curriculum or learning outcomes.

Autonomous learning“But we can go for weeks or months sometimes with nothing tangible happening, you know nothing really, can't see that they're doing anything other than playing but then suddenly they seem to have caught something and I can see where it's come from but bits of it you know little snippets build up and suddenly they're doing a big project themselves”Mother

“Our research challenges the view of learning as a separate, definable, deliberate activity and suggests that learning itself needs to be problematized in a very radical manner.” (Thomas and Pattinson 2007)

Existing research on home education and information use

Narrative that home educated children have markedly different information experiences

Home education has been understood in terms of communities of practices (from Wenger)

Possible connection between home education and “out of school” literacies: more collaborative and liberating practices

Interpretive approach: findings are local and limited to particular familiesInterviews as meaning making processFive in depth interviews with family groups, children aged between eight and seventeenConstructivist grounded analysis (inspired by Charmaz)Three themes emerged: digital minds, information literacy in the wild and doing it togetherRelationship between themes not realised

Methodology and methods

Digital minds: Central importance of digital information

Digital was ubiquitous:“I don't really know because I use it [the Internet] all the time... for absolutely everything”

But over course of interview families started to recognise their practices:“So that for us became the way to do it”

And see them as better than those taught in schools:“We were told to use the website and we'd just guess, click on something funny and then do anything else”.

Information literacy in the wild: Challenging the skills model

The skills model was a useful way for the participants (and the interviewer) to talk about their information literacy: “it's a case of just keeping on top of it making sure she knows how to read a timetable…”

But they also talked about very different kinds of information literacy where the emphasis was on a far more holistic practice:“we don't go home, we carry on through our lives”

This was sometimes conceptualised through gender: fathers were identified with more orthodox models of knowledge and expertise and mothers with the informal and holistic:“when I don't know I used to say ask daddy because he knows a lot more or if we're in the house it's let's look it up, I don't know the answer”

Doing it together: Importance of collaborative practices

During interviews participants started to recognise their information literacy as collaborative:“pretty much by myself... My granddad, that's a good point my granddad actually is a big figure”.

Identified three different groups “experts”, family and friends, and home educating community: “I think I've just I've realised how much I draw on it recently and it's something that...is so strong it's almost like do you choose to be part of it or not”

Communities of practice

Helpful to understand each family as a community of practice

“Home edders” community of practice for mothers but not fully evidenced for children within this study

Information literacy is useful reflective tool

The families had limited awareness of the concept of information literacy before the interviews.

Act of interviewing helped them recognise their information literacy practice was complex, collaborative and potentially transformative.

Shouldn’t over emphasise this: no evidence that it changed what they did but it changed how they thought in the interviews.

“Home schooling will remain fertile ground for research—not only as a fascinating educational phenomenon in and of itself, but also for what it pushes us to consider about the purposes of education more broadly.”

Kunzman and Gaither (2013)

ReferencesHopwood, V., O'Neill, L., Castro, G. and Hodgson, B. (2007) The prevalence of home education in England: a feasibility study. Nottingham: York Consulting Ltd for the Department of Education and SkillsKunzman, R. and Gaither, M. (2013) Homeschooling: a comprehensive survey of the research. Other Education 2(1): 4–5Lloyd, A. (2005) Information literacy different contexts, different concepts, different truths? Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 37(2): 82–88. Lloyd, A. (2007) Learning to put out the red stuff: Becoming information literate through discursive practice. The Library Quarterly 77(2): 181–198.McTavish, M. (2009) I get my facts from the internet’: A case study of the teaching and learning of information literacy in in-school and out-of-school contexts. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 9(1): 3–28. Safran, L. (2010) Legitimate peripheral participation and home education. Teaching and Teacher Education 26(1): 107–112.Thomas, A. and Pattison, H. (2007) How children learn at home. London, United Kingdom: Continuum.Wenger, E. (1999) Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

The dissertation on which this presentation was based was submitted to the University of Sheffield in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA Librarianship.

With thanks to my supervisor Dr Peter Stordy and the home educating families who shared their stories

ImagesTrees © Daniel Schwen CC BY-SA 3.0) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aspen_trees_2.jpg

Learning together © Pierre Vignau CC-BY-2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/vimages/2910864268

Dancing © Lori Yeardon CC-BY-2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/usaghumphreys/5458132156

Computer © Bartomi CC-BY-SA-3.0 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walden_computer.JPG

Maths © Peter http://mathsblog.co.uk/2009/11/10/maths-worksheet-dividing-by-10-with-decimals/

Reflection © Stew Dean CC-BYhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/stewdean/3802443966

Beach combing © peregrineblue CC-BY-NC-SA https://www.flickr.com/photos/peregrineblue/7022363701/

Other images by Jess Elmore CC-BY-SA