One of the central aims of this book is to consider what makes alternative learning spaces ‘alternative’. I began this task in Chapter Three, where I outlined some of the principal pedagogical and organisational features of the educational types included in this book. In many cases, it is those kinds of features – from conceptions of child development to the role of the teacher – that explicitly mark out those spaces as alternative (Sliwka, 2008). At the same time, many of the case studies (and the organisations representing them) promote themselves as somehow alternative to, or different from, mainstream education in the UK. Two brief examples should illustrate this. In the first example, Steiner schools compare their approach to the ‘early specialization and academic hot-housing’ they observe in mainstream settings (http:// www.steinerwaldorf.org/). Thus, the official Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship UK website presents 10 key points regarding the ‘distinctive education’ provided by Steiner schools (http://www.steinerwaldorf. org), including creativity, (lack of) assessment and individuality. In the second example, home educators express similar sentiments about mainstream schooling in a very different, and sometimes more overtly politicised way. Even by its name, one of the main UK home education support groups – Education Otherwise – implies alterity from the mainstream. That organisation's description of home education begins ‘Home education (HE) is an alternative to school; it is parents’ right in law to keep primary responsibility for the education of their children instead of delegating it to a school’ (www.education-otherwise.net).

Clearly, there are some distinct pedagogical, organisational and definitional features that mark out learning spaces as ‘alternative’ (Woods and Woods, 2009). However, the aim of this chapter is to begin to present a more complicated and nuanced picture. I do so by drawing directly upon the views of educators and learners involved in several of the alternative learning spaces that served as case studies for this book. I introduce the first of my spatial frames of reference – connection/disconnection – as a way to understand the ways in which organisations and individuals position themselves in respect of the mainstream.