Agency in Action
(Re)conceptualising Parental Action and Decision-Making in Home Education, in the Context of Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22044072 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rainbow Cheung (0009-0000-0417-3732, University of Bristol), Jo Rose (0000-0003-2810-6491, University of Bristol, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 638 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Education Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2227-7102 • E-ISSN: 2227-7102 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/educsci16040638 |
| OpenAlex | W7154646037 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 53 |
The growing prevalence of home education necessitates exploration of parental involvement outside traditional schooling environments. This paper conceptualises parental involvement within home education decision-making. Core elements of decision making, including Choices, Contexts, Challenges and Changes, are integrated with Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory to create the 4Cs model of parental decision-making in home education. The 4Cs model is developed from integrating findings from the literature with previous empirical work on how parents make and explain decisions in home education. The present paper uses this model to organise and explain parental decision-making in a structured way. Building on critiques of school-centric parental involvement models, the 4Cs model steps away from assumptions that position parents as passive participants in schools’ agendas to instead illustrate parents’ active collaboration and involvement in their children’s education. The paper goes on to use the 4Cs model to help reframe Epstein’s typology of parental involvement to bridge home education research and broader scholarship on parental involvement. It provides a structured lens to analyse the decision-making processes that underpin why families choose home education and how it is enacted in practice. Central to this framework is the concept of parental agency, which is decoupled from school-based imperatives and positioned as the driving force in constructing tailored learning environments. This theorisation offers a critical lens for examining how parents navigate educational trade-offs, socioecological constraints, and adaptive strategies. We reframe parental involvement as deliberative, context-responsive praxis, creating potential for the 4Cs framework to act as a transferable model for analysing agency-driven parental engagement across diverse educational settings
Cognitive reframing · Experiential learning · Scholarship · Sociology of Education · Structure and agency · Typology · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Global Educational Reforms and Inequalities · Parental Involvement in Education
Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methodologies
A practical model for school leaders to encourage parental involvement and parental engagement
The effects of parental involvement on students’ academic self‐efficacy, engagement and intrinsic motivation
Parental involvement to parental engagement
Equity Issues in Parental and Community Involvement in Schools
Implementation of Home-Schooling
Contemporary Homeschooling Arrangements
The decision to homeschool
Operationalizing Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Process-Person-Context-Time Model
African American Homeschooling as Racial Protectionism
Exploring the Lived Experiences of Home-Educating Families with Young Children in the UK
Different uses of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory in public mental health research
The home‐education of children with special needs or disabilities in the UK
Pursuing quality in early childhood education with a government-regulated voucher
Parental Involvement in Education in and out of School
Homeschooling in the United States
Why Do Parents Homeschool? A Systematic Examination of Parental Involvement
Meta-Analysis of Parental Involvement and Achievement in East Asian Countries
Homeschooling Education
Understanding the Initial Stories of Families Preferring Homeschooling
African American Homeschooling and the Quest for a Quality Education
Toward an experimental ecology of human development
Understanding parental involvement with schools and parental engagement with learning across schools in areas of socioeconomic deprivation in Wales
Role Strain, Emotion Management, and Burnout
Working with Immigrant Children and Their Families
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |