Homeschooling and Diversity

Brief History and “Typical” Demographics

Although home-based education has existed for thousands of years, only about 13,000 students in grades kindergarten to 12 were being home-schooled in the United States by the late 1970s. The practice of homeschooling was rekindled during the 1980s, promoted by individual parents and educational thinkers with a variety of backgrounds in pedagogical philosophies and religious world-views. Growing to an estimated 1,730,000 to 2,350,000 students by spring 2010, home-based education is perhaps the fastest-growing form of education, compared to public and private institutional schooling.

Much research has addressed why parents and youth choose home education. According to the National Home Education Research Institute, the most common reasons are the following:

Although measures of central tendency mask the variety of people involved in home education, the following descriptions give a glimpse of the current homeschool population in the United States:

• 1.
  Father and mother are actively involved in home education, with the mother usually the main academic teacher.
• 2.
  A married, male–female couple head the large majority of families.
• 3.
  The learning program is flexible and highly individualized, using a variety of materials.
• 4.
  Home-educated students generally have little interaction with state-run schools or their services.
• 5.
  Children study a wide range of conventional subjects, with an emphasis on reading, writing, math, science, and faith.
• 6.
  Most students are engaged in activities outside the home such as volunteer community work, learning cooperatives, internships, travel, and sports.
• 7.
  Most of the children are home-educated for at least 5 years; most parents intend to home-school their children through secondary school.
• 8.
  Homeschool families are typically larger than average, with three or more children.
• 9.
  Male and female students are equally represented.
• 10.
  Homeschool students score, on average, 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests.
• 11.
  Home-educated children and youth perform, on average, as well as or better than institutional school students on measures of social, emotional, and psychological development.
• 12.
  About half of homeschool parents have earned a bachelor's degree or higher.
• 13.
  The median household income is close to the median for U.S. families with school-age children.
• 14.
  Over 75% of the parents regularly attend religious services. The majority are Christians who place a strong emphasis on orthodox and conservative Biblical doctrine.
• 15.
  About 85% are White/non-Hispanic.

An Assortment of Variables

Although accurate, the summary above obscures the rich variety to be found in homeschool households and communities. The following sections reveal the diversity in homeschooling.

...