Record: Sarah Pannone, “Homeschoolers’ Experiences with the Public Library: A Phenomenological Study” in Children and Libraries 17, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 5-10. [Preview Here].
Summary: Pannone, an Adjunct Instructor and doctoral director at Liberty University and author of previous articles on the experiences of new homeschooling mothers and on connections between homeschooling and entrepreneurialism, here examines homeschoolers and use of the public library.
Like her previous studies, this one is a small convenience sample (seven families in this instance), and, as in the past, she organizes her data under three main findings.
After a brief literature review establishing that homeschooling families have long been found to frequent public libraries at high rates, she introduces her study, which seeks to find out why.
Pannone sent out an online posting to a Florida homeschooling group and got seven volunteers. These volunteers, all moms, had from 1 to 6 children ranging from age 6 to 17. She had each mother fill out a survey and respond open-endedly to this writing prompt: “please describe a typical visit to the public library.” Pannone also conducted interviews with each subject.
Pannone then collected and organized her data into three reasons why homeschooling families use libraries so much. First, they view libraries as a “home away from home,” a place where the kids can go to get out of the house and be exposed to a literature-rich environment, often one with activities for them. 5 of the 7 subjects mentioned this, and those who did were more likely to spend significant time every week in the library.
Second, libraries save the family money. Free resources, especially books, supplement the family’s purchased homeschooling materials, and when libraries offer free enrichment activities these families are delighted to partake. Pannone notes that most of the families in her study were not using the library for formal curriculum but for enrichment or pleasure.
Third, and related, mothers wanted more. Most of the programs libraries offered were “after-school” and summer activities, but of course homeschoolers don’t have to wait until the late afternoons or the summers to do fun activities at the local library. Also, mothers of older students wished that libraries had more to offer older children. Basically, homechoolers, who use libraries a lot, want libraries to cater more to them.
Pannone concludes with suggestions for libraries. She encourages them to invest in comfortable spaces (couches and so forth) given the “hang-out” function, in homeschooler-friendly daytime activities and activities for older children, and possibly in homeschooler curriculum.
Appraisal: As usual for Pannone and for a huge percentage of the homeschooling literature generally, this qualitative convenience sample of seven has no generalizability. But what Pannone finds is consistent with other anecdotal accounts of why and how homeschoolers use libraries, and her recommendations are consistent with previous writing on the topic as well. Her methodology (asking for volunteers) was likely to capture families who use libraries more than others, so this might not be the most accurate picture of homeschooler use overall. She also doesn’t attend at all to the financial realities of modern libraries, for whom it may or may not make financial sense to purchase homeschooling curriculum or offer programs to homeschoolers early in the day. Nevertheless, there has been very little research on homeschoolers and library use, so it’s nice to have this article.
Milton Gaither, Messiah College