Home schooling is defined by Preiss (1989) as "the educational
alternative in which parents/guardians assume the primary responsibility for
the education of their children." This Digest will offer some
background information on home schooling and discuss conflicting viewpoints
culled from research on the socialization of home-schooled children.
Rapidly Escalating Numbers
While a Department of Education study in 1990-91 concluded that between
250,000 and 300,000 school-age children were being educated at home,
"USA Today" recently cited the Home School Legal Defense
Association figures for 1994 as between 750,000 and 1 million--up from only
15,000 in the early '80s (Thomas, 1994). What is the reason for this
explosion?
Mayberry (1991) pinpoints the gradual development of the modern state and
public education as arenas which attempt to legitimate themselves by
embodying the ideologies of many different public segments. She argues that
by considering other agencies of socialization (in this case, the church or
the family) as arenas which embody ideologies in contradiction to those
transmitted by state institutions, the "context surrounding parental
choice to home educate gains clearer focus." She stresses that
"...the decision to home school (or seek other forms of privatized
education) represents a political response by people who perceive a threat
in the current organization and content of public education." Thus, the
home schooling movement is directly linked to the State's struggle to
balance contradictory imperatives (Mayberry, 1991).
Background and Professional Resources
For historical background on home schooling in America, both Bliss (1989)
and Aiex (1994) provide enlightening information. Preiss (1989) offers a
concise treatment of the legal aspects of home schooling.
With the tremendous growth in numbers of the home schooled, there has
been a corresponding growth in the market for home schooling
information--indeed, there are now myriad newsletters and books aimed at
parents who home school, as well as at least one scholarly newsletter,
"Home School Researcher." According to Preiss (1989), "In
1987, in one home-schooling catalog alone, over 300 suppliers of
home-schooling materials are listed." With the explosion in home
schooling during the past few years, one can only imagine how large the
network of professional suppliers of materials is by now.
The granddaddy of all the providers of courses for home study is the
venerable Calvert School of Baltimore, which, for many years, was almost the
only institution which offered correspondence courses below college level.
It was founded in 1906 and has enrolled, through the years, upwards of
360,000 students in its home instruction courses. It has, of course, been
joined by other entities in the past decade.
Why Parents Home School
Parents home school for a wide variety of reasons--for example, many
parents still live in areas where schools are not readily available (a
number of rural areas and some parts of Alaska come to mind), and many
parents are anxious about the physical well being of their children in an
increasingly more violent school setting. Still others simply feel that they
can give their children a better education at home. According to Mayberry
(1991), however, two groups of parents home school primarily for ideological
reasons:
1. deeply religious parents, and
2. "New Age" parents.
Mayberry surveyed 1600 Oregon families who home schooled, receiving a 35%
response rate to her questions. Their responses led her to conclude that the
two groups cited perceived home schooling as an activity that provided them
a way to reproduce their "way-of-life" by controlling the content
of their children's education. She reports:
"...the meanings and values embodied in public education were not
the ones that these parents wanted articulated to their children"
(Mayberry, 1991).
Socialization of Children
Does the research show any clear-cut advantages or disadvantages to home
schooling, in relation to the social and emotional development of children
schooled at home? Does the home-schooled youngster do as well in measures of
interpersonal skills and communication skills as the conventionally schooled
child?
The stereotypical home-schooled child is often portrayed as being shy,
passive, and lethargic because of his/her isolation from the normal
socialization found in formal schooling. Critics further allege that the
self-concept of the home-schooled child suffers from lack of exposure to a
more conventional environment (Stough, 1992).
Another socialization-related accusation faced by home educators is that
of overprotecting their children from the real world. If this is true,
however, at least one researcher (Bliss, 1989) does not consider this to be
a serious problem. She argues that "Protection during early,
developmental years for purposes of nurturing and growth is evident in many
arenas: plant, animal, and aquatic. Why should it be considered wrong or bad
in the most vital arena, human development?"
Stough (1992), looking particularly at socialization, compared 30
home-schooling families and 32 conventionally schooling families, families
with children 7-14 years of age. According to the findings, children who
were schooled at home "gained the necessary skills, knowledge, and
attitudes needed to function in society...at a rate similar to that of
conventionally schooled children." The researcher found no difference
in the self concept of children in the two groups. Stough maintains that
"insofar as self concept is a reflector of socialization, it would
appear that few home-schooled children are socially deprived, and that there
may be sufficient evidence to indicate that some home-schooled children have
a higher self concept than conventionally schooled children."
This echoes the findings of Taylor (1987). Using one of the best
validated self-concept scales available, Taylor's random sampling of
home-schooled children (45,000) found that half of these children scored at
or above the 91st percentile--47% higher than the average, conventionally
schooled child. He concludes: "Since self concept is considered to be a
basic dynamic of positive sociability, this answers the often heard
skepticism suggesting that home schoolers are inferior in
socialization" (Taylor, 1987).
From the findings of these two studies, it would appear that the concerns
expressed by teachers, administrators, and legislators about socialization
and home schooling might be unfounded. Indeed, Bliss (1989) contends that it
is in the formal educational system's setting that children first experience
negative socialization, conformity, and peer pressure. According to her,
"This is a setting of large groups, segmented by age, with a variation
of authority figures...the individual, with his/her developmental needs,
becomes overpowered by the expectations and demand of others--equal in age
and equally developmentally needy."
Webb (1989), one of the few researchers who has examined aspects of the
adult lives of wholly or partly home-educated people, found that all who had
attempted higher education were successful and that their socialization was
often better than that of their schooled peers.
More Research Is Needed
At this point, more research on home schooling is necessary--what we have
is inconclusive about many of its aspects. Although more and deeper studies
are certainly called for, the population to be studied is not readily
accessible to researchers. And the types of research that can be done are
still limited to case studies of families or to surveys of self- reports by
participants.
Notably, the success or failure of the home schooling experience depends
inevitably on the success or failure of the family's interpersonal
relationships. Home schooling is a complex issue and represents a tremendous
commitment on the part of the parents--in most cases, the father must
function as the sole breadwinner, and the mother must spend most of her time
instructing her children.
For now, we will let Preiss (1989) have the last word. She says:
"Because home schooling contains so many diverse and changing factors,
each family situation is unique. Yet there exists within the home-schooling
community a sense of unity which transcends ideological, political, and
religious concerns. That unity lies in the parents' commitment to the
education of their children, whose welfare is their primary concern."
~~~~~~~~~~
References
Aiex, Patrick K. (1994). Home Schooling, Socialization,
and Creativity in Children. ED 367 040
Bliss, Barbara A. (1989). Home Education: a Look at
Current Practices. Research Project, Michigan State University. ED304
233
Mayberry, Maralee (1991). Conflict and Social
Determinism: The Reprivatization of Education. Paper presented at the
American Educational Research Association Meeting (Chicago). ED 330 107
Preiss, Jane S. (1989). Home Schooling: What's That?
Paper presented at the Mid-South Educational Research Association Meeting
(Little Rock). ED 314 856
Stough, Lee (1992). Social and Emotional Status of Home
Schooled Children and Conventionally Schooled Children in West Virginia.
M.S. Thesis, University of West Virginia. ED 353 079
Taylor, John Wesley (1987). Self-Concept in Home Schooling
Children (Doctoral Dissertation, Andrews University, 1986). Dissertation
Abstracts International, 47, 2809A.
Thomas, Karen (1994). "Learning at Home: Education
outside School Gains Respect." USA Today, April 6, 1994, 5D.
Webb, Julie (1989). The Outcomes of Home-Based Education:
Employment and Other Issues. Educational Review, 41(2),
121-33. EJ 393 193
This publication, prepared with partial funding from
the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of
Education, is in the public domain.
Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted.
