Record: Coalition for Responsible Home Education, “A Complex Picture: Results of the 2014 Survey of Adult Alumni of the Modern Christian Homeschooling Movement, Installment Two” Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out (1 February 2015). [Available Here]
Summary: This post reviews the second installment of HARO’s survey of homeschool alumni. For the other installments in the series please click on the following links:
- Installment 1: Background and Summary
- Installment 2: Demographics
- Installment 3: Academics and Non-Academics
- Installment 4: Food and Health
- Installment 5: Religion
- Installment 6: Present and Future
- Installment 7: Sexuality
- Installment 8: Mental Health
- Installment 9: Abuse
Installment two discusses the impact that variables such as age, gender, and parental education level had on the respondents’ experiences with homeschooling.
First the authors analyze the significance of age on their sample. When they divide the sample into three groups (birth years 1968-1979, 1980-1988, and 1989-1997) they find several distinctions. For example, the youngest group (born 1989-1997) are more likely to have been homeschooled for 12 or more years, more likely to say that their homeschool experience prepared them for the future, and more likely rate the quality of their education as good or very good. Younger homeschool alumni are also less likely to come from a fundamentalist home and less likely to have been abused. All of these statistics support the claim that homeschooling has become more mainstream over the years.
Next they discuss the impact of gender. The authors note that the results may be impacted by the age results discussed above because males composed 30% of the youngest age group but only 20% of the oldest. This bias may partially explain why males were more likely to report a good or very good experience in almost all subjects (especially math). In terms of extracurricular experiences, males rated their experiences higher than females in areas that would lead to career preparedness like college prep and job training.
65% of the sample came from social media, 25% came from homeschool survivor networks like Homeschoolers Anonymous, and 10% came from other sources. Those who came from homeschool survivor networks were 14% less likely to identify as heterosexual, 21% more likely to have been raised in a fundamentalist home, 31% more likely to have experienced abuse, 18% more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness, and 6% more likely to have attempted suicide. Even among the group that came from social media and other sources, 53% were raised in fundamentalist homes, 35% experienced abuse, and 23% reported that they had been diagnosed with a mental disorder.
61% of respondents were so-called “movement homeschoolers” who were homeschooled for 12 years or more. 52% of the respondents’ families were directly or indirectly members of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA); however, the true number is likely higher than that since 20% of the respondents did not know if their parents participated in HSLDA.
Next the authors’ attention turns to the parents of the homeschool alumni and how they impacted their childrens’ experiences. First of all, it is important to note that 93% of respondents were raised by their married, biological parents. 54% of the primary parent-educators had at least a bachelor’s degree. There is a strong correlation between the parent-educator’s level of education and the respondent’s sense of whether homeschooling prepared them for the future. In terms of academic instruction, alumni who were taught by a parent with a graduate degree felt better in every subject than someone who was taught by a parent who only had a B.A. This pattern held consistent throughout the levels of education (ie. some college was better than a parent who just had a high school diploma). Also, on a side note, the respondents tend to be well-educated like their parents. Excluding the respondents who are younger than 25 and the 45% of respondents who are currently students, 61% had obtained at least a bachelor’s degree.
In 92% of cases, the respondent relied on their mother for education, though their dependence on the mothers decreased as they got older. 37% also relied on their fathers as teachers, and 29% received some instruction from a teacher in a homeschool co-op. 58% of respondents would say that they directed their own education, and 84% said that they received educational support from their caregivers.
In conclusion, demograpic variables had a significant impact on the respondents’ homeschool experiences. Younger respondents reported receiving a better education than older respondents, and males reporting receiving a better education than females. Parents’ level of education had a profound effect on the quality of instruction reported by respondents.
Appraisal: Readers are reminded, as discussed in the review of Installment 1, that HARO’s sample is not representative of the homeschool community as a whole. Its convenience sample from homeschool support groups and similar networks only gives us insight into the experiences of this particular group.
Sherfinski and Chesanko (2015) and Kathryn Joyce’s book Quiverfull give some further insight into the fundamentalist families that are the baseline demographic of this study. In addition, this article by Kathryn Joyce provides context for the HARO survey and offers a more qualitative look at a few of the alums that this survey targets, clearly demonstrating the unequal opportunities for girls in many fundamentalist homeschooling families. Medlin’s survey of recent socialization literature also found that homeschooled girls exhibited different patterns of self-evaluation than girls who attended conventional schools. In public and private schools, girls tended to score themselves much higher on socialization measures than did boys, but in homeschools that well-established gender pattern did not hold. This HARO survey is further confirmation of that finding. All of this helps explain why most “survivor blogs” maintained by homeschooled alums who are trying to escape their fundamentalist roots are written by women.
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