A case study of creativity development in two Muslim homeschools in Thailand

Abstract

This is a qualitative exploratory case study that investigated in-depth information regarding creativity’s perception, creativity development, as well as problems of creativity development in Muslim homeschools. The participants of the study were two homeschool mothers based in Bangkok, Thailand. Data were collected through semi-structured and informal interview, observation, and document analysis from December 2015 to March 2016. To ensure the trustworthiness of the study, triangulation of methods, member checking, and providing rich descriptions of the cases were obtained. Using informed consent and guarantee confidentiality of the participants in any written report addressed the ethical consideration. Inductive thematic analysis was used to generate themes and sub themes. Three main themes emerged from the analysis. Under the first theme, “perceptions towards creativity”, three sub-themes were generated: definitions of creativity, importance of creativity development in homeschool, and understanding and inspiration from Islamic perspective. The second theme dealt with “home-school mother’s engagement to fostering creativity”. It had four sub-themes that the participants used to adopt creativity in children: experiential learning, readiness of children, encouraging divergent thinking and critical thinking, as well as formative assessment. The last theme, “problems and challenges,” revealed two sub-themes, which were multiple roles and emotional burn out. This study suggests further investigation on homeschool learners’ responses toward creativity development practices of home-school mothers.