Principle 9

Background

The number of students who participate in home-schooling, and do not attend a school in person, has escalated in Australia and around the globe, especially since COVID.  For example, in Queensland, between 2021 and 2025, the number of students who are registered as homeschooled has more than doubled.   

Parents choose to homeschool their children because of many reasons.  For example, these parents may believe that homeschooling

• can accommodate the disabilities, physical health concerns, or mental health concerns of their children better,
• can accommodate the learning style, progress, or preferences of their children better as well as provide better learning opportunities,
• can accommodate other challenges, such as remote locations.

Although homeschooled children must be able to fulfill the learning goals of the Australian Curriculum, parents can diverge from the curriculum and implement a range of strategies to achieve these goals (for a taxonomy, see Neuman & Guterman, 2017).  These parents might attempt to emulate a typical school day, replete with whiteboards and textbooks, or expose their children to an array of other educational activities and experiences.    

Benefits and complications

Generally, homeschooling does not impair the academic or social development of students and, in many instances, may benefit these children more than would conventional schools (for a review, see Kunzman & Gaither, 2020).  Although reassuring, parents, regulators, and other authorities need to be aware that

• few studies on this topic have controlled all relevant variables and, therefore, the results over an extended period cannot be regarded as definitive,
• few studies have explored whether the variance in academic or social development across students is more pronounced in homeschooled children.

Indeed, the existing rules and regulations do not preclude a problem that may be prevalent and significant: the possibility that a small, or even a sizeable, minority of parents who choose to homeschool their children may be narcissistic.  To illustrate

• narcissistic people are often unduly confident in their capabilities (Meisel et al., 2016) and thus might assume they can impart knowledge better than can teachers,
• narcissistic individuals frequently experience paranoia (Fanti et al., 2025)—and, for example, may believe the school could brainwash or harm their children,
• yet, these narcissistic parents—parents who may gravitate to homeschooling—are the very individuals who are most likely to behave abusively towards their children (Wiehe, 2003),
• in contrast, humble parents are more likely to be effective teachers, enhancing the motivation, engagement, and learning of their children (Zou & Chen, 2025).

Accordingly, governments should consider a policy in which parents, before they can register to homeschool their children, may need to complete some modules or activities that have been shown to foster humility and thus prevent these problems.  These changes could significantly enhance the benefits of homeschooling while decreasing the complications. 

Overview

Since the Australian Citizenship Act was introduced in 2007, to become an Australian citizen, applicants must complete a citizenship test that assesses whether they espouse Australian values. However, this test does not accurately predict the likelihood that individuals will exemplify these values or choose courses of action that benefit the nation.  Instead, to achieve this goal, citizenships should complete a module that fosters humility and complete a test that measures their humility.  

Background

Specifically, the Department of Home Affairs now administers a test to applicants, comprising a series of multiple-choice questions. Applicants must correctly answer questions that are designed to assess an understanding of Australian values.  Furthermore, to be granted citizenship, applicants must supply evidence of good character and pledge commitment to the nation.   

Unfortunately, applicants who answer the questions correctly may be no more likely than applicants who do not answer these questions correctly to exemplify these values or enact behaviours that benefit society.  To illustrate, people who exhibit the signs of narcissism, rather than humility, can thrive on tests of knowledge (e.g., McManus et al., 2022) but are often

• inclined to violate rules and laws, such as exceed speed limits (Bushman et al., 2018) or perpetrate sexual assault and rape (Bushman et al., 2003), often because they feel entitled to disregard regulations,
• intolerant of diverse races, ethnicities, religions, or demographics (Schnieders & Gore, 2011),
• unconcerned, rather than compassionate, towards people in need (Salazar, 2016).

Accordingly, people who exhibit various facets of narcissism will often pass the citizenship test but demonstrate the very behaviours the test is designed to prevent. 

Solution

To address this problem, an obvious solution is that applicants must complete a module that is designed to foster humility and complete a test that assesses whether they have completed this module or whether they exhibit the hallmarks of humility.  The benefit of this solution is that, as research has revealed

• when people develop the features of humility, the adverse effects of narcissism dissipate significantly (Rong & Hu, 2023),
• short workshops, when designed appropriately, can greatly enhance the humility of participants (Harmon-Jones et al., 2025),
• some tests that assess whether individuals have developed humility are valid and cannot be readily faked (see this webpage).