Record: Ama Mazama, “African American Homeschooling Practices: Empirical Evidence.” Theory and Research in Education, 14, No. 1 (2016): 26-44. [Abstract]
Summary: Mazama, one of the leading researchers on African American homeschooling, is Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Programs of the Department of African American Studies at Temple University. In this article, she seeks to investigate the daily instructional practices of African American homeschoolers.
Despite the recent scholarly interest in homeschooling, some aspects, such as daily instructional practices, remain understudied. The lack of information is even more severe when it comes to minority groups such as African Americans. While previous studies into African American homeschooling practices were limited by small sample sizes and limited geographical reach, in this study Mazama attempts to draw from a much larger number of households from a wide geographical area.
One thing that unites the past studies that mention the practices of African American homeschoolers is that they all found African American homeschooling to be very structured. Mazama says very directly in her abstract that her findings do not lend credence to that.
Mazama and her colleague Garvey Musumunu conducted 74 interviews across a wide geographical area. 29.7% of the respondents came from Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. This was followed by the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia (25.7%), Washington, DC (17.6%), New York (10.8%), Atlanta (8.1%), two cities in South Carolina (6.7%), and a city in Delaware (1.3%). 80% of the interviews were conducted with only the mothers. In addition to the interviews, Mazama also relied on surveys, focus groups, and observations in order to gain the most comprehensive understanding of Black homeschoolers.
In terms of demographics, 91% of households had two-parents. The families, on average, had 3.2 children. Over 80% of the mothers and over 60% of the fathers had an undergraduate degree or more as compared to only 19.4% of Blacks nationally. Given that instruction is almost always provided by the mother, this means that approximately 20% of African American homeschoolers are taught by someone without an undergraduate degree. Finally, in regards to income, 25% of the households earn upwards of $100,000 annually.
Mazama found that the mother was the main teacher in 95% of Black homeschools. Like most homeschooling families, the father is usually the breadwinner and the mother stays home with the children. In cases of homeschooling with single mothers, grandparents might step in to teach the children. However, when children are older, Mazama noted that many teach themselves without much involvement on the parent’s end since the students developed skills to learn independently.
Homeschooling co-ops were mentioned by 54 of the 74 interviewees. However, the structure and formality varied greatly. The reasons given for co-ops were both social and educational, and they were most commonly used for science, art, music, and physical education. The parents said that co-ops took some pressure off of them, and that students used them more as they got older. Two related phenomena were the frequent use of “ad hoc classes” offered by museums, libraries, etc. and also participation in clubs. 92% of the sample mentioned museums as a homeschooling resource for their families. Another 86% percent mentioned taking taking their children to a park on a regular basis. Through all of the resources that the families mentioned, a picture emerges of families on the go, not children secluded at home. Finally, it is important to mention that Mazama found the parents she interviewed to be very distrustful of public schools. Only 11 of the 74 families opted to take advantage of public school resources, even though they are legally entitled to them.
Now Mazama turns her focus to the instructional practices of homeschoolers. Overall, like homeschoolers in general, a variety of practices were found. Mazama divided the spectrum broadly into parents who promulgated child-driven learning and those who practiced adult-driven learning. The idea behind child-driven learning is that the child, and not the parent, is the person who is principally in charge of deciding what topics she/he would like to learn about. A common trend was that inexperienced homeschoolers tended towards an adult-driven approach, whereas homeschoolers with more experience gradually adopted a more child-driven approach. Unlike previous research that found Black homeschoolers to prefer a structured approach, only several of Mazama’s respondents professed a highly structured, adult-driven approach with a pre-set curriculum. The majority of interviewees mixed practices from both child-driven and adult-driven approaches.
To answer the question of what Black homeschoolers are taught, the beliefs of the parents must be looked at. Mazama’s previous research found that Black homeschoolers ranged from Christian fundamentalists to African cultural nationalists, and the diversity has not decreased in her latest study. Unsurprisingly, the choice of curriculum was closely related to the parents’ ideological choices. In general terms, however, it can be said that most Black homeschoolers attempted to foster a new narrative about the African American / African experience. Many viewed the traditional, Euro-centric school curriculula as racial and cultural oppression. Mazama described one self-proclaimed Christian couple who terminated their subscription to their online curriculum because it portrayed slavery as “not that bad.” By adding a greater focus on Black culture, Black homeschooling parents hoped to increase their children’s self-confidence.
Black homeschoolers also expressed a desire to help their children develop their emotional, social, physical, artistic, creative, and spiritual potentials. Not just academics. They also tried to instill a work ethic in their children through continuous effort and high standards.
Appraisal: Mazama, along with her usual co-author Garvey Lundy (now Musumunu), has published many articles about African American homeschoolers in the past, but none of the others are as complete as this one. Through this article, we learn that African American homeschoolers do not differ significantly from their White counterparts. Like White homeschoolers, Black homeschoolers also come with many different ideological and pedagogical beliefs. Their practices cannot be easily described. However, the one thing that did set Black homeschoolers apart was the desire to cultivate a more positive and in-depth look at Black culture than the information that is typically provided in public schools.
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