Homeschooling
Homeschooling or home schooling, also known as home education or elective home education, is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or online teacher, many homeschool families use less formal, more personalized and individualized methods of learning that are not always found in schools. The actual practice of homeschooling varies considerably. The spectrum ranges from highly structured forms based on traditional school lessons to more open, free forms such as unschooling, which is a lesson- and curriculum-free implementation of homeschooling. Some families who initially attended a school go through a deschooling process to decouple from school habits and prepare for homeschooling. While "homeschooling" is the term commonly used in North America, "home education" is primarily used in Europe and many Commonwealth countries. Homeschooling should not be confused with distance education, which generally refers to the arrangement where the student is educated by and conforms to the requirements of an online school rather than being educated independently and unrestrictedly by their parents or by themselves.
Before the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws, most childhood education was done by families and local communities. By the early 19th century, attending school became the most common means of education in the developed world. In the mid to late 20th century, more people began questioning the practice of school learning, which again led to an increase in the number of homeschoolers, especially in the Americas and some European countries. Homeschooling has become a common and legal alternative to public and private schools in many countries, largely due to the Internet, allowing quick access to information. The regulation and legality of homeschooling varies by jurisdiction. Homeschooling has evolved from a niche practice to a mainstream educational service in many countries; there has been a significant increase in homeschooling.
There are many reasons for homeschooling, ranging from personal interests to dissatisfaction with the school system. Homeschooling is also an option for families living in remote rural areas, those temporarily abroad, those who travel frequently and therefore face the physical impossibility or difficulty of getting their children into school, and those who want to spend more time with their children. Health reasons and special needs can also explain why children cannot attend an outside-the-home school regularly and are at least partially homeschooled.
Critics of homeschooling argue that children may lack adequate socialization and, therefore, incompletely develop healthy social skills - source?. Some are also concerned that parents may be unqualified to guide and advise their children or that abusive parents may use homeschooling to isolate their children. Critics also say that a child might not encounter people of other cultures, worldviews, and socioeconomic groups if not enrolled in a school. Therefore, these critics believe homeschooling cannot guarantee a comprehensive, neutral education without prescribed educational standards. Studies on homeschooled students typically rely on convenience sampling, which may disproportionately sample the highest-achieving homeschoolers. Researchers have identified a need for more representative samples in studying homeschooling.
Terminology
While "homeschooling" is the term commonly used in the United States and other nations in North America, "home education" is primarily used in the United Kingdom, elsewhere in Europe and many Commonwealth countries.History
Education began in ancient civilizations like Egypt, India, and China, where it was primarily reserved for elites and focused on religion, governance, and moral instruction. In classical Greece and Rome, education emphasized philosophy, rhetoric, and civic duty, laying the groundwork for Western educational thought. During the Middle Ages, religious institutions preserved knowledge and established early universities in Europe and the Islamic world. The Renaissance and Reformation sparked a shift toward humanism and literacy, expanding access to education. By the 19th and 20th centuries, public education systems emerged globally, evolving into the diverse, technology-driven models we see today.Early history
For most of history, home-based education was common. In many cultures, home education often consisted of literacy training centered around religious texts, as well as basic math skills needed in everyday life. In past Christian-majority cultures, reading aloud, reciting, and memorizing passages from the Christian Bible and other writings was central to this practice, as well as workplace-based education such as apprenticeships. Enlisting professional tutors was an option available only to the wealthy.Home education and apprenticeship remained the main form of education until the 1830s. However, in the 18th century, the majority of Europeans lacked formal education. In the early 19th century, formal classroom schooling became the most common means of schooling throughout developed countries. As laws enforcing public school attendance proliferated, movements to resist such laws began to form.
Home education declined in the 19th and 20th centuries with the enactment of compulsory school attendance laws. However, it continued to be practised in isolated communities. What is now known as homeschooling began in the 1960s and 1970s with educational reformists dissatisfied with industrialized education.
United States
Resistance to laws mandating school attendance emerged as early as the end of the nineteenth century. Catholic groups in particular resisted the enforcement of Protestant ideals in public schools, as was observed in the 1844 Philadelphia nativist riots. Philadelphia's Roman Catholic bishop requested that Catholic schoolchildren be permitted to read the Catholic Douay bible in school rather than the Protestant King James Version, which was granted. This decision fanned anti-Catholic sentiment, sparking a rumor that Catholics were attempting to remove the Christian Bible from schools. Toledo, Ohio, minister Patrick Francis Quigley was put on trial in 1891 for resisting the requirement to report the names of students at his school, which he was principal of; he argued unsuccessfully that "the state has no right to control the education of the child." Resistance to mandatory schooling was sporadic throughout the 19th century as the state undertook more responsibility in protecting the rights of children.In 1913, the US Bureau of Education established the Home Education Division, an organization that worked with the National Council of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations to provide home curriculum materials; these were meant to supplement, not substitute, for public schooling. In the early 20th century, the headmaster of Baltimore's Calvert School, Virgil Hillyer, recognized that various students at his school were unable to attend due to ill health and began to send out lesson plans to those students' parents. The Calvert method became a popular early home curriculum. Its advertising in periodicals such as McClure's admonished parents that the curriculum was necessary to provide a proper education. This form of homeschooling was targeted primarily at those who needed to educate their children at home due to ill health, and many of their materials were dispatched to hospitals. In 1940, remote education began to be delivered via telephone.
In the 1960s, theonomist Rousas John Rushdoony began to advocate homeschooling, which he saw as a way to combat the increasingly secular nature of the public school system in the United States. He vigorously attacked progressive school reformers such as Horace Mann and John Dewey and argued for the dismantling of the state's influence in education in three works: Intellectual Schizophrenia, The Messianic Character of American Education, and The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum. Rushdoony was frequently used as an expert witness by the Home School Legal Defense Association in court cases. He often advocated the use of private schools. The HSLDA, founded in 1983, was highly successful in influencing the legal status of homeschooling in the United States. In the 1980s, homeschooling was illegal throughout much of the United States for parents who were not themselves trained educators. Today, the United States has some of the most lax laws around homeschooling, with most states requiring little to no oversight and no educational requirements for parents. Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states in the United States. Each state must follow regulations set by their states.
Prominent right-wing evangelical pastor and activist Jerry Falwell sought to terminate sex education and discussions of evolutionary biology from American school curricula, instead recommending replacing both topics with prayer and Christian Bible study. The movement embraced claims by Christian parents who advocated for homeschooling, such as Raymond and Dorothy Moore. Another influential figure associated with the rise of the homeschooling movement was John Holt. Holt believed that informal education was better than compulsory education and expressed these views in his books How Children Fail and How Children Learn. Holt advocated for unschooling, whereby children learn without any formalized curricula or expectations. As homeschooling caught on in Evangelical Christian circles, the number of children being homeschooled increased massively, with some estimates suggesting the number went from under twenty thousand in the 1970s to nearly 500,000 by the end of the 1980s.