Conference Program

The phenomenon of homeschooling raises questions about various aspects of contemporary social life: the meaning of education, the socialisation process, the concept of citizenship, the relationship between the individual and the state, the relationship between the public and private spheres, and the sense of belonging to a broader social system regulated by institutional actors or limited to the family or community (Watson 2018,Restiglian, Busato 2024; Di Motoli 2020, Chinazzi 2020, 2021,2025).

Based on the results of research on the phenomenon of homeschooling conducted in Liguria during the years 2024 and 2025, this paper seeks to examine how the practice of homeschooling may be interpreted as an expression of an intensive and extensive parenting model (Lee, Bristow , Faircloth , Macvarish 2014, Faircloth 2023), centered on the idea of personalized individualism (Lipovetsky, 2013), which can be said to be dominant today, albeit in mostly less radical terms. Adopting a sociological approach, we understand parenting as a field of action that, in a broad sense, intercepts the relationship between the individual and the social context, bringing into play not only subjective representations of the parenting model but also social ones.

Starting from an analysis of the literature on the subject and interviews with homeschooling parents (a part that we are expanding in a second phase of research that has just begun), we intend to bring out and analyse the demands, needs, desires, concerns and expectations that characterise the parental role of families who decide to organize their children's education and socialization independently, foregoing the offer of public or state-approved schools.

...] to recognize at the same time that there are always multiple perspectives and multiple vantage points, is to recognize that no accounting, disciplinary or otherwise, can ever be finished or complete. There is always more. There is always possibility, and this is where the space opens for the pursuit of freedom (Greene, 1988, p. 128).

This contribution proposes a collective inquiry into the creative potential of critiques that the homeschooling movement directs towards contemporary educational institutions. Through a participatory methodology inspired by the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI), we aim to transform participants into a research community that questions and shares essential queries (Lipman, 2003; Zorzi, Santi, 2023).

The provocations raised by Illich in Deschooling Society (1971) – school as a disabling institution, as a mechanism for reproducing inequalities, as a site of commodification of learning – maintain striking relevance today. Testimonies from families choosing unschooling or homeschooling highlight persistent vulnerabilities (Rochovská, 2023): i.e., spatial-temporal rigidities, inflexible curricula, and limited capacity to welcome individual differences such as giftedness or learning difficulties. From an authentically democratic perspective (Popper, 2000), which recognizes minority voices as constitutive elements of plurality, it is fundamental to critically interrogate these instances and collectively pose central questions (Biscaldi, et al., 2024): what can a public school learn from homeschooling critiques without abdicating its social function but rather strengthening it transformatively?

Our methodological approach does not limit itself to theoretical-critical analysis of nodal points identified by recent studies (Cheng, Hamlin, 2021; Chinazzi, 2021; English, et al., 2024; Restiglian, Busato, 2024) but employs CoPI to collectively imagine new research questions. Through shared interrogation, we aspire to map two dimensions: first, critical issues characterizing homeschooling movements from an educational standpoint (i.e. what society is envisioned? Are those choices accessible to all? Towards what "good" do these educational movements tend? What role do collectivity and educational community play?); second, critical issues homeschooling highlights within current schooling (i.e. inability to attend to individual wellbeing; structural rigidity; transmissive teaching-learning overlap; adaptation requirements to hierarchical logics conveyed through implicit curricula). This plural inquiry aims to transcend polarization between "defenders" and "detractors", nurturing critical and democratic reflection oriented towards a transformative horizon that recovers skolé's original meaning as liberated time and libertarian space (Freire, 2014; Kohan, 2011).

From a Freirean perspective (Fain, 2002), homeschooling's dissonant voices offer creative opportunities for rethinking schooling profoundly. Reconsidering school through these solicitations means reaffirming it as a common good (UNESCO, 2019) – not as a uniform, standardized service, but as a public space with strong educational and political roles (Kohan, et al., 2016) requiring collective care. This common good demands shared responsibility, democratic participation, and continuous transformative capacity. Only a school capable of listening to critical voices, becoming flexible without losing its public function, personalizing without privatizing, can constitute an authentic bulwark of social justice and active citizenship.

What happens to education when the classroom begins to move?

This presentation examines itinerant learning at LiberSchool, an alternative school in Northern Italy that emerged within the intentional community of Damanhur—one of the largest intentional communities in Europe. Drawing on more than forty years of pedagogical practice, the paper explores how recurring educational journeys reshape relationships between autonomy, care, and participation in the public world.

At LiberSchool, itinerant learning refers to educational journeys integrated into the curriculum, ranging from day trips to journeys lasting up to two weeks. These experiences accompany the entire educational path of the school, typically beginning around the age of two and evolving in duration and complexity through the elementary and middle-school years. Itinerancy is therefore not an occasional activity but a recurring pedagogical practice and a defining feature of the school’s educational approach.

Traveling together transforms the class into a temporary learning community in which students and educators share responsibility for daily life and collective well-being. In this sense, itinerant education can be understood as a form of education through mobile community life. As the group moves through different places and situations, children participate in everyday decisions that shape the life of the group, learning to negotiate needs, responsibilities, and collective choices.

Within these shared journeys, educators are encountered not only as teachers but also as companions and caregivers in everyday life, while relationships among peers often deepen through cooperation and mutual support. Such experiences allow children to experiment with autonomy while remaining embedded in a relational network of care. In this sense, care is not treated as a private virtue but as a shared social practice through which collective life is sustained—echoing broader discussions on caring democracy in contemporary educational thought.

Within current debates on unschooling and home education, such practices challenge the frequent assumption that educational choices outside institutional schooling imply a withdrawal from the public sphere. In the case of LiberSchool, itinerant learning instead functions as a bridge to the public sphere: students encounter unfamiliar places, interact with people beyond their immediate community, and gradually learn to orient themselves within the complexity of shared social life.

The contribution draws on practitioner knowledge developed within the school and adopts a methodological approach based on reflective practitioner inquiry, combining autoethnographic reflection with narratives of lived educational experience. Rather than presenting itinerant learning as a model to be replicated, the paper treats LiberSchool as an empirical site through which to explore how democratic participation, autonomy, and relations of care emerge through shared movement in the world.

This contribution critically interrogates the notion of assessment as a central node of the school experience, placing it in tension with the practices of home education (homeschooling). Whilst in formal schooling assessment functions as a key dispositif, frequently embedded in everyday practices and the hidden curriculum, in homeschooling contexts it tends to be marginalised, driven by the belief that it may interfere with the child's well-being and with an educational relationship genuinely centred on the learner.

The paper explores the tensions between two paradigms. On the one hand, school-based assessment, despite its well-known limitations (standardisation, rigidity, selective function), has increasingly opened up to perspectives of formative assessment and assessment for learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998): a continuous process of gathering evidence, providing feedback, and enabling reciprocal regulation between teaching and learning, capable of fostering awareness, self-regulation, and student participation. In this view, assessment does not merely certify outcomes but becomes a public device for recognition and the construction of shared meaning. On the other hand, home education practices tend to privilege personalisation, flexibility, and the suspension of formal judgement, at times leading to its implicit removal.

The marginalisation of assessment in homeschooling does not, however, imply its absence. Rather, it is transformed into implicit and informal practices which, whilst echoing some principles of formative assessment (continuous observation, responsiveness to learners' needs, centrality of feedback), risk remaining under-theorised and difficult to make visible and communicable within a broader social space (Restiglian & Busato, 2024; 2025).

The contribution does not aim to oppose schooling and homeschooling, but rather to identify a shared space for enquiry: how can assessment processes be reconfigured as democratic practices, capable of supporting well-being without relinquishing the public dimension of education? To what extent can formative assessment act as a mediating ground between the need for personalisation and the need for socially shared recognition of learning? In this regard, Boud's notion of sustainable assessment is particularly relevant, as it highlights the importance of developing practices that support learners beyond formal schooling, fostering self-assessment and lifelong learning capabilities (Boud, 2000).

From this perspective, the paper proposes to rethink assessment as a situated, dialogic, and plural practice which, consistent with a view of education as a common good (UNESCO, 2021), is able to integrate the demands for personalisation emerging from homeschooling without renouncing its social function. Assessment, thus conceived, is neither mere certification nor its negation, but rather a formative space in which feedback, negotiation of meanings, and the co-construction of shared criteria sustain an ongoing tension towards still-unexplored educational possibilities.

Home education occupies a contested position within contemporary education systems, frequently framed as a private choice operating outside the collective purposes of schooling. At the same time, increasing numbers of families are turning to home education, often in response to unmet needs within mainstream provision, particularly for neurodivergent children and those experiencing exclusion. This raises critical questions about how education is conceptualised, who it serves, and how democratic participation is enacted within - and beyond - formal institutions.

This paper draws on an ongoing doctoral study exploring the lived experiences of home-educating families in England. Adopting a qualitative, collective case study design, the research is informed by ecological systems theory, critical reflective practice, and late modern perspectives on identity and agency. Data are generated through in-depth, multiple interviews with families, supported by iterative cycles of reflection and co-construction. This approach enables a nuanced exploration of how families navigate educational systems, negotiate legitimacy, and reconstruct educational pathways over time.

Findings suggest that home education is not simply a withdrawal from the public sphere, but a reconfiguration of engagement with it. Families describe processes of “recalibration,” in which educational decisions are reshaped around children’s identities, wellbeing, and relational needs. In doing so, they actively challenge dominant, standardised models of schooling and expand the boundaries of what counts as education. Learning is repositioned as embedded, participatory, and responsive to context, rather than confined to institutional settings.

At the same time, the study highlights ongoing tensions between plural educational practices and regulatory frameworks that seek to define and govern “appropriate” education. These tensions expose underlying assumptions about citizenship, responsibility, and the role of the state in shaping educational trajectories. While policy discourse often positions home education as marginal or problematic, the lived experiences of families suggest a more complex reality in which agency, care, and responsiveness are central.

By foregrounding these perspectives, the paper contributes to debates on homeschooling and the public sphere by offering an empirically grounded account of how education can be enacted beyond institutional boundaries. It argues for a more expansive, pluralistic understanding of education within democratic societies - one that recognises diverse pathways, values lived experience, and reconsiders the relationship between individuals, families, and the state in shaping educational futures.