The Concept, Status and Necessity of Homeschooling in the Iranian Education System

Homeschooling is going through its early stages in the Iranian education system. There are many ambiguities in the application of this approach at present. Hence, in this article, the concept, status, and necessity of homeschooling in the Iranian education system were scrutinized. To this end, foreign documents belonging to the years 1976-2018 and domestic works belonging to the years 1991-2017 were probed. More specifically, 98 studies were systematically selected, content analyzed and categorized using the synthetic method. Then a combination of findings was presented according to the principles of data integration, reconsideration, and rearrangement. At the end of each section, aggregation of findings and overall conclusions, if necessary, were provided. The results showed that parent-supervised education of children and flexible curricula were essential concepts in homeschooling. This approach has developed abroad significantly due to educational reasons and its outstanding values. However, its position in Iran is in a state of uncertainty. Nonetheless, special attention should be paid to its use because of the following disadvantages of the Iranian education system: 1) inefficiency of the education system; 2) educational inequality; 3) centralized and bureaucratic education system; 4) traditional teaching methods; 5) subject-centered curriculum 6) contradictory values in homes and schools.