Research & Statistics
Resources
Kingdom of Children : Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology)
More than one million American children are schooled by their parents. As their ranks grow, home schoolers are making headlines by winning national spelling bees and excelling at elite universities. The few studies conducted suggest that homeschooled children are academically successful and remarkably well socialized. Yet we still know little about this alternative to one of society's most fundamental institutions. Beyond a vague notion of children reading around the kitchen table, we don't know what home schooling looks like from the inside.
Sociologist Mitchell Stevens goes behind the scenes of the homeschool movement and into the homes and meetings of home schoolers. What he finds are two very different kinds of home education--one rooted in the liberal alternative school movement of the 1960s and 1970s and one stemming from the Christian day school movement of the same era. Stevens explains how this dual history shapes the meaning and practice of home schooling today. In the process, he introduces us to an unlikely mix of parents (including fundamentalist Protestants, pagans, naturalists, and educational radicals) and notes the core values on which they agree: the sanctity of childhood and the primacy of family in the face of a highly competitive, bureaucratized society.
Kingdom of Children aptly places home schoolers within longer traditions of American social activism. It reveals that home schooling is not a random collection of individuals but an elaborate social movement with its own celebrities, networks, and characteristic lifeways. Stevens shows how home schoolers have built their philosophical and religious convictions into the practical structure of the cause, and documents the political consequences of their success at doing so.
Ultimately, the history of home schooling serves as a parable about the organizational strategies of the progressive left and the religious right since the 1960s.Kingdom of Children shows what happens when progressive ideals meet conventional politics, demonstrates the extraordinary political capacity of conservative Protestantism, and explains the subtle ways in which cultural sensibility shapes social movement outcomes more generally.
The Homeschooling Revolution
Research Organizations
The Home School Researcher
Cato Institute
Education Resources Information Center (ERIC)
National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI)
Home School Research from HSLDA
Homeschool Research Analysis
Homeschooling Is Growing Rapidly in Many States of the United States
Structured homeschooling gets an A+
Homeschooling: A Growing Option in American Education
Home Schooling Achievement
State Laws Concerning Participation of Homeschool Students in Public School Activities
Homeschooling Growth in the 1980s
Homeschooling Grows Up
Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority Over Education: The Case of Homeschooling
The Boundaries of Parental Authority: A Response to Rob Reich of Stanford University by Thomas W. Washburne, J.D.
Thomas W. Washburne, J.D. discusses how Reich's ideas for home education have a dangerous implication on the freedoms of homeschooling parents. Let's Stop Aiding and Abetting Academicians' Folly by Larry and Susan Kaseman
Larry and Susan Kaseman discuss the weaknesses in Reich's study and include strategies to counteract negatively biased research on homeschooling.
Homeschoolers: Estimating Numbers and Growth
Careful Study Finds Homeschool Advantage
Homeschooling--It's a Growing Trend Among Blacks
Fifteen Year Later: Home-Educated Canadian Adults
Homeschooling: Back to the Future?
Homeschooling Grows in the Black Community
The Rise of Home Schooling Among African-Americans
Home Schooling and the Question of Socialization
Virtually all homeschooling parents will hear the question at some point ... What about socialization? It is a puzzling question to homeschoolers, as the term itself has various meanings. This well-documented paper by Richard G. Medlin takes a look at this question and concludes that homeschooled children certainly are not isolated. In fact, they associate with and feel close to many types of people. Their socialization skills are very good and they demonstrate good self-esteem, confidence, and resiliency.
Evidence for Homeschooling: Constitutional Analysis in Light of Social Science Research
The Case for Homeschooling
Research Facts on Homeschooling
NHERI, the National Home Education Research Institute, has compiled these research facts on homeschooling. These fast facts cover the number of homeschooled students, demographics, motivations for home educating, academic performance, social, emotional, and psychological development, socialization, homeschool successes, and general interpretation of research on homeschool success.
Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 Statistical Analysis Report
Statistics and Data for Vermont and the U.S.
Canadian Study Confirms Advantages of Homeschooling
Home Schooling Works!
The Case for Homeschooling
The Characteristics of Homeschooled and Nonhomeschooled Students
Homeschooling in the United States: 1999
Sources of Curriculum or Books
Research Facts on Homeschooling
NHERI, the National Home Education Research Institute, has compiled these research facts on homeschooling. These fast facts cover the number of homeschooled students, demographics, motivations for home educating, academic performance, social, emotional, and psychological development, socialization, homeschool successes, and general interpretation of research on homeschool success.
Estimated Number of Homeschooled Students in the United States - 2003
Home School Research from HSLDA
Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 Statistical Analysis Report
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