Introduction
Homeschooling has been a practice followed for centuries around the world. In the 1970s there were around 13000 homeschoolers in the United States (Ray). Recently it has gained extensive media (Ryan; Ryan; Saulny) and academic attention (Bauman; Collom; Ray). The increase in the amount of interest is due to the increased number of homeschoolers in America (Collom). The reasons that have been seen prevalent are religion, the conditions of public school education, individual child care, and elite homeschooling activities. The three are mutually exclusive and cater to a different classes of people. Another aspect that has gained attention is the increasing popularity of homeschooling with the degradation of public schooling in the popular media (Apple).
Even though the trend of homeschooling in the US has gained acceptance and popularity, statistical data on the subject is very difficult to compile. The question of data accuracy and validity always exists. Some data is available in the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) who has estimated the data to be 2 to 2.5 million children in the US in the year 2007-08 school years who were being homeschooled. NHER’s findings also suggest an increase of 12 percent annually in the number of homeschoolers since 1990 (NHERI). Presently there are estimated to be about 2 million home-schooled students in the US.
These numbers demonstrate an increase in the advent of homeschooling in the US. Hence, it is important to understand the reasons behind the phenomenon. Further, there has been an increase in the practice of homeschooling among elites (Saulny), non-whites, and Hispanics (NHERI). Thus, it is important to know what the reasons behind homeschooling are for these people. Do they have the same reason to adopt homeschooling or there are different isolated reasons for their adoption of this practice? This paper aims to understand this growing trend in the US and the reason behind the increasing popularity of homeschooling.
Literature Review
Various research on homeschooling and the increasing interest to provide “personalized” education to children has dealt with various aspects of homeschooling and the motivational factors that influence parents that induce them to adopt this mode of pedagogy. Here we present a brief review of literature on homeschooling and the reasons that have been found to influence homeschooling.
Mayberry and Knowles (1989) studied the parents who taught their students at home. They studied the results from two qualitative studies. Their study suggested that even though motives behind the decisions of families to adopt homeschooling are complex, an important commonality underlies their decision. Their broad objective for this study was to identify the motives as well as plot those motives in light of the parent’s belief about educational content and environment and then place their findings in a wider social context. Their study was based on two independent studies: a statewide study of home school families in Oregon, was conducted during t987 and 1988 and the other is a study in Utah’s most heavily populated region, the Wasatch Front, which began in 1985 and continued as part of a larger study. They combined the results of the two studies and identified a commonality in the diverse growth of parents. On comparing the two studies, they found that even though discontent with the education system in public schools acts as an influencing factor for parents most of them are motivated by their stress on “family relationships and family unity in their decision to teach their children at home” (Mayberry and Knowles 214). According to these parents, homeschooling acts as an essential element in developing close family relationships. Ideological reasons also serve as a strong reason for home educating children as parents like to have control over the content of the study material of their children. One of the ideologies that have found predominance is religious beliefs and values. Thus their study showed that “to control the ideological content of their children’s education oriented these families to home schooling, while enhancing family relationships, maintaining family bonds, and strengthening family ties were their desired objectives” (Mayberry and Knowles 217). Their study further showed that parents concerned about pedagogy were not concerned about the ideologies spread through public school education and wanted to home school to provide their children unique pedagogical conditions such as one-to-one educational delivery. In both the cases of ideological and pedagogical concerns, spending quality time with children was a desired objective of parents.
One problem with this study is that it focuses on parents who themselves home-school their children and avoids the trend of an increasing number of tutors being employed to teach their children. Then the objective to share and spend time with children is depleted.
Bauman has studied the trend and characteristics of homeschooling in the US (2002). This study used data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) published by the US Census Bureau 2000 and the National Household Education Survey (NHES) of 1996 and 1999. The dataset provides information regarding the characteristics of homeschoolers and their families. They also show the homeschooler’s “race, Hispanic ethnicity, age, and sex of children” (Bauman). The dataset indicates information regarding the household which includes “number of adults in the household, their education, labour force participation and household income” (Bauman). The data provided by CPS supplied information regarding the homeschooler’s “state of residence, metropolitan status and urban/rural location” (Bauman). He then recorded the regions by the migration taxonomy and made urban-rural segregation and the urban-rural divisions provided in CPS. Further, the NHS data provided the reasons for parents to resolve to the adoption of homeschooling, where we’re asked to choose from a list of 16 reasons.
Bauman’s study shows an upward trend in the growth of homeschooling in the US. His study on the demographical characters of homeschoolers show that they are usually of the age of 6 to 17 years, can belong to either of the sex (slightly higher for females), they are more likely to non-Hispanic whites, living in households of married couples with high or medium educational level, and who have three or more children, and one non-working parent. While discussing the geographic distribution of the homeschoolers the study indicates that homeschoolers are located mostly in the rural and suburban West. The reason as cited by Bauman is population explosion and migration from California. According to the study, the top five reasons which influence a parent’s decision to home school children are “can give child better education at home, “religious reasons”, “poor learning environment at school, “object at what school teach”, “school does not challenge child” and “family reasons”.
Bauman’s study is based on old data and fails to capture the trend among non-whites to employ homeschooling. Further, there is no stress on the reason for employing home tutors to deliver to children at home. But the study fails to draw any conclusive relationship between the demographical model of parents who employ home teaching and their motivational factors.
Collom (2005) in his study tried to investigate the motivational factors of parents to home school and the determinants of home-educated students are found in the study. He conducted a questionnaire survey from an organized group of homeschoolers and analyzed the data collected. He also employed 16 motivational factors of homeschooling which were clustered as academic and pedagogical concerns, religious values, and family life. He employed a regression model to predict the motivational influence of parents to adopt homeschooling and the outcome on student’s standardized test achievement. He identified pedagogical concern to be the root of this whole movement. Religious values and criticism of the public education system also tend to be popular reasons for the adoption of homeschooling. Collom did not find any demographical impact on parental motivation which indicated that there is no demographic underpinning to the movement. He then identified student achievement of the homeschooled students in SAT-9 and considered the standard three-Rs i.e. reading language and mathematics scores. This study shows that the homeschooled students outperform average American students in each of the three disciplines.
Collom then employed 13 independent variables such as “educational attainment, age, race, gender, household, income, marital status, employment status, public school teaching experience, spouse involvement in income education, previous involvement with homeschooling community, number of years of home educating, religiosity, and self reported political identification” (Collom 318). He also identified 4 student relevant factors: “grade level, gender, average daily number of instructional hours, and number of siblings’ homeschooled concurrently” (Collom 319). His findings showed that homeschoolers of colored parents’ motivational reasons were their criticism in public schools. Families with both spouses involved in home education are more likely to adopt homeschooling. Further, the achievement level of homeschooled students showed that children showed a higher level of achievement if their parent’s educational background was higher and their parents are more conservative. Children who have lower academic achievement show their parental motivation to be family or children need. Further parents who show dissatisfaction towards public school pedagogy and public school environment show higher levels of reading and maths scores.
The commonality in all three studies is the parent’s concern with the pedagogy of public school education and religious influence in public school educational content. In both cases, the reason is dissatisfaction with public school educational content.
Conclusion
The trend of homeschooling children has increased in the US. Parents have been influenced by various reasons for teaching children at home. We tried to trace the reason behind this increasing trend of homeschooling.
The literature review showed various reasons for parent’s motivation to employ homeschooling. One showed that parents intend to spend more time with children and so want to teach them at home. These parents tend to be dissatisfied with the pedagogy and ideological reasons for teaching children at home (Mayberry and Knowles). The studies also showed that the trend of homeschooling is more among White Americans and families with at least one parent not working (Bauman). But the first trend has been partially been refuted in other studies which show that there is also an increasing trend of homeschooling among colored students as their parents’ perception of discrimination against their children in public schools (Collom; Mayberry and Knowles). Further a correlation has been found between the achievement of homeschooled students in standardized examinations and parental motivation to conduct homeschooling. They show there is a positive relation between student’s achievement and parents’ education and degree of conservatism of parents (Collom).
Thus the study shows that there is an increasing trend of homeschooling among Americans. Parents who have two or more children home school their children. What the studies reviewed fail to identify the increasing trend of employing tutors to teach their children at home and if there is any demographic or motivational influence on their choice.
Bibliography
- Apple, Michael W. “Away With All Teachers: The Cultural Politics of Home Schooling.” International Studies in Sociology of Education Vol. 10, No. 1 (2000): 3-22.
- Bauman, Kurt J. “Home Schooling in the United States: Trends and Characteristics.” 2002. Education Policy Analysis Archives vol. 10 no. 26.
- Collom, Ed. “The Ins and Outs of homeschooling.” Education and Urban Society vol. 37 no. 3 (2005): 307-335.
- Mayberry, Maralee and J. Gary Knowles. “Family Unity Objectives of Parents Who Teach Their Children: Ideological and Pedagogical Orientations to Home Schooling.” The Urban Review Vol. 21, No. 4 (1989): 209-226.
- NHERI. RESEARCH FACTS ON HOMESCHOOLING. 2008.
- Ray, Brian D. “A homeschool research story.” Cooper, Bruce S. Homeschooling in Full View. USA: Information Age Publishing Inc., 2005. 1-29.
- Ryan, Sally. “Home Schoolers Content to Take Children’s Lead.” The New York Times 2006.
- “Unschooling the Billings Children Enlarge This Image.” The New York Times 2006.
- Saulny, Susan. “The Gilded Age of Home Schooling.” The New York Times 2006.