Beyond the Classroom: Expatriate Homeschooling Experiences in the UAE

Homeschooling has become an increasingly prevalent form of alternative education around the world, including within the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (AlDhaheri, 2024; Nandkeolyar, 2021). However, it remains a significantly under-researched topic, with few studies examining the experiences, attitudes, or perspectives of homeschoolers. This qualitative study provides an in-depth analysis of the experiences of 15 homeschooling families in the UAE, focusing on identifying applicable education laws and policies, reasons for parents to pursue homeschooling, and challenges faced by such families at the micro-, meso-, and macro- levels. Based on our case study, the findings suggest that some parents in the UAE, similar to other contexts, choose to homeschool to customize their children’s education to their needs, reinforce family and religious values, navigate learning disabilities, and avoid perceived negative features of mainstream education. Some of the key challenges that parents face while they homeschool include pressures on the family unit, especially mothers as the primary learning facilitators, social stigma, and obstacles to re-entry to mainstream education at the school level as well as in relation to higher education domestically. In light of such challenges, our recommendations include facilitating the recognition of homeschooling, albeit with quality assurance measures, in addition to challenging social stigma and conducting further research on homeschooling.