Homeschooling in the United States: A review of select research topics by M. Gaither
The article by Gaither (2017) represents a historical retrospective on homeschooling in the United States. Home education was popular in the US from colonial times. However, in the 19th century people started to choose formal education more eagerly due to the free public education for white children. Thus, in the beginning of the 20th century almost all children studied at schools. However, in the 1970 the trend for home education came back. The quality of education received at home is questionable, as the methods of data gathering do not allow receiving a clear picture concerning this issue. It is also connected with the decentralized education policy of the United States. In some states the children are even not registered as homeschoolers, which makes it impossible even to estimate their number. However, the estimates reveal that nowadays the number of homeschoolers is about 2 million children (Gaither, 2017). Among the leading reasons for homeschooling there are moral and religious factors, dissatisfaction of the level of education at schools, and concerns about the school environment. For African American families, racism is also one of the key factors to give up school education.
Thus, the article presents the historical background of homeschooling in the US as well as the modern statistics on the issue. It reveals the reasons for which families of different ancestry and background choose home education. It also questions the issues of the quality of such education and impossibility to estimate the actual number of homeschoolers. It also considers the questions of adaptation of homeschoolers to adult life and their college enrollment. The article can be considered a credible source, as it is published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal by a reputable researcher. It provides some statistical data upon the considered issues and its profound analysis.
Personality, socio-economic status and education: factors that contribute to the degree of structure in homeschooling. Social Psychology of Education by Guterman and Neuman
The study by Guterman & Neuman (2017) is focused on the impact of children’s background and socioeconomic aspects that influence the homeschooling educational process. The article describes the phenomenon of homeschooling, its causes and outcomes for children. According to the article, among the main reasons of homeschooling there are parent’s ideology and educational approaches. The article analyses the parent’s personal traits using the Big Five psychological model. Besides, the perspective of attachment theory was used to estimate the parents’ personal and developmental processes. The results of the analysis provided by the researchers revealed that the quality of homeschooling largely depends on the level of mother’s education. Besides, the family income and conscientiousness also have a positive correlation with the structurization of the homeschooling. Parents with anxiety attachment style tend to devote more hours to the child’s home education. Conscientiousness and extraversion also correlate positively with the hours dedicated to the studies.
The article is one of the first articles to analyze the personal traits of the parents of homeschoolers according to the Big Five model. This is one of the facts that make it innovative and credible. It provides the synthesis of psychological tools and statistical data that allows to get a multilateral and scientific picture of the homeschooling in the US. The data are presented in the form of graphs and figures which shows that mathematical methods of data analysis were used. The work is published in the peer-reviewed source, Social Psychology of Education, that provides scholarly articles in the fields of psychological and sociological aspects of education.
Homeschooling in the United States: A review of select research topics by Brewer and Lubienski
The article by Brewer and Lubienski considers the history of homeschooling in the United States. It also analyses the main categories of rationalizing of homeschooling. These reasons are divided into two groups: empirical and ideological. Empirical reasons concern efficiency and effectiveness of education that is received at home. Ideological reasons include religious beliefs, moral and political disposition. The authors question the reasonability of empirical reasons as the parents of homeschoolers do not have any special education and skills to learn children. They do not have any licence, and the state oversight after such families is not sufficient. However, the statistics proves that homeschooling is effective, as home-educated students achieve even higher scores and demonstrate greater academic achievement than average public-school students. They are also actively enrolled in colleges, which proves the efficiency of this type of education. Besides, the authors analyze different researches concerning the academic success of home-educated students and analyze the flaws of some of them.
Thus, the article considers actual statistical data on the issue of academic achievement of home-educated students. It presents a multilateral research of the reasons of homeschooling and divides it into several groups. The article is published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal and cites modern relevant researches upon the topic, which makes it credible. The analysis of the flaws of external researches presented in the article allows to evaluate both the efficiency of analyzed tools and the situation in the sphere of education in the US.
References
Brewer, T. J., & Lubienski, C. (2017). Homeschooling in the United States: Examining the rationales for individualizing education. Pro-Posições, 28(2), 21–38. Web.
Gaither, M. (2017). Homeschooling in the United States: A review of select research topics. Pro Posições, 28(2), 213–241. Web.
Guterman, O. & Neuman, A. (2018). Personality, socio-economic status and education: Factors that contribute to the degree of structure in homeschooling. Social Psychology of Education. 21. Web.