Learning from home learning: Crossing boundaries of place and identity

Abstract

AbstractDuring the COVID‐19 lockdown, parents and caregivers were asked to take greater responsibility for their children's education while they were unable to attend school. In this commentary, we report on data sourced from 243 participants in theTasmania Projectin Australia about their experiences of learning from home during COVID‐19 lockdown. We engage with ideas about boundaries and bounding processes to understand how participants perceived challenges to their children's learning from home. They identified a lack of physical space for children's work to be performed and a lack of time, skill, and confidence to support them. We explore the bounding processes inherent to understanding and constituting education through identity, space, and place making and consider the ways in which these processes were revealed in the challenges identified by respondents. We argue that home learning disrupted known practices associated with education and schooling and challenged accepted categories and socio‐spatial divisions created by institutionalisation. We anticipate that exploring the challenges of home learning during COVID‐19 from the perspectives of parents and caregivers will inform future home–school partnerships.