Record: Hünkar Korkmaz and Güler Duman, “Public understanding about homeschooling: A preliminary study” in Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014): 3891-3897. [Abstract]
Summary: Korkmaz and Duman are from the faculty of education at Akdeniz University in Antalya, Turkey. In this article they discuss the findings of a survey they conducted with 130 participants that aimed to determine the public understanding of homeschooling in the country of Turkey.
Homeschooling is almost nonexistent in Turkey since according to Turkish law all children must be educated in the school system. The 130 participants that they found lived in a metropolitan area. They were 63% female and ranged in age from 19 to 75 (with an average age of about 35 years old). Their education levels varied quite considerably, with 23% of the participants at the postgraduate level, 35% being college or university graduates, 17% having only a high school diploma, 7% being elementary school graduates, and 8% being elementary school dropouts. About 49% of the participants were married with children, and 41% of the participants were single without children. 45% of the participants were on the starvation line. About 22% of the participants were raised in rural villages, while other participants were raised in cities and towns.
The two largest reasons for being against homeschooling were beliefs that it impedes socialization and that homeschooled students miss out on face to face interaction with teachers. Respondents also mentioned concerns such as the parent’s career, a lack of time/resources for the child’s education, and a lack of different educational opportunities for students who homeschool. On the other hand, the participants would be more accepting of homeschooling if the child exhibited behavior problems at school or if the child had special needs. Overall, the respondents were much more skeptical of homeschooling than they were accepting.
Korkmaz and Duman analyzed the data for differences between genders and socio-economic classes. Males were over twice as likely as females to say that they would homeschool their children for religious or moral reasons, and they were similarly more likely to be in favor of homeschooling caused by a poor learning environment. On the other hand, woman were about three times more likely to want to homeschool their children because schools ignored their individual differences or because the children could not get into a desired school.
Socio-economic status also affected the data. Respondents at the starvation line were much more likely to give family difficulties and transportation problems as possible reasons for homeschooling. Ignorance of individual differences, the child having a special need or disability, and a lack of challenge for the child at their school were reasons for homeschooling that were mostly mentioned by people of a a middle or higher income.
Korkmaz and Duman also asked about the types of support that the respondents felt they would need to homeschool. The biggest support needed, as mentioned by 77% of respondents, was books and materials. This was followed by financial support (69.2%). While women expressed need for a place for students to meet, men were significantly more likely to say that they would need financial support and that they would have to take some classes. As might be expected, people of a lower socio-economic class said that they would require financial support to homeschool their children. People of a higher socio-economic status asked for a website to support parents.
Appraisal: I have mixed feelings about this study. On one hand I am impressed with the amount of diversity the authors were able to achieve in their sample. It includes people of many educational levels and backgrounds, which led to an interesting analysis since they were able to look at the results by gender and income and still find a wide-ranging consensus against home education. On the other hand, Korkmaz and Duman do a poor job of explaining their methodology. They discuss their results, but they don’t give a clear representation of where the data came from. For example, were these open-ended interviews where the participants could voice anything, or did the data come from a more structured questionnaire? And how did they find their sample? Were these just random people on the street? Nevertheless, for a country that has very little homeschooling scholarship, this article does a decent job of presenting public opinion towards homeschooling. If Turkey eventually moves in the general direction of other industrialized countries toward being more open to the practice, this study could serve as a helpful historical marker. In the United States and many other countries, public opinion about home education improved markedly as the practice grew in visibility. Will the same thing happen in Turkey?
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