Record: Özlem Yurt and Serap Demiriz, “Effect of Home-Based Education Program on Six-Year-Old Children’s Acquisition of Scientific Concept” in International Journal of Human Sciences 11, no. 1 (2014): 1-19.
Summary: As this article is written in Turkish and I know neither the language nor anyone who does, I will limit myself in this post to reproducing the English-language abstract provided by the publisher: Continue reading
Record: Jasmine McDonald and Elaine Lopes, “How Parents Home Educate their Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder with the Support of the Schools of Isolated and Distance Education” in International Journal of Inclusive Education 18, no. 1 (2014): 1-17. [abstract here]
Summary: McDonald completed her doctoral thesis on how parents deal with the education of a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in 2010. Lopes completed her doctoral thesis on Distance Education in Western Australia in 2009. Here these two junior scholars combine their research to investigate the role of a distance education program in helping parents manage the education of children with an ASD. Continue reading
Record: Franz Reimer, “School Attendance as a Civic Duty vs. Home Education as a Human Right” in International Journal of Elementary Education 3, no. 1 (October 2010): 5-15.
Summary: This is the first article in a special issue of the International Journal devoted entirely to homeschooling. They are all available for free here. Continue reading
Record: Linda Wang, “Who Knows Best? The Appropriate Level of Judicial Scrutiny on Compulsory Education Laws Regarding Home Schooling” in Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development, 25 (Winter 2011); 413-448.
Summary: Wang, who earned her J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law, here seeks to make sense of the conflicting and hazy Constitutional principles at play in cases regarding homeschooling law and liberty. Continue reading
Record: Yvona Kostelecká, “The Legal Status of Home Education in Post-Communist Countries of Central Europe” in International Review of Education 58, no. 4 (August 2012): 445-463.
Summary: Kostelecká, on the faculty of education at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and author of a fine 2010 piece on home education in the Czech Republic, here expands her scope to five post-communist states in Central Europe: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, and Hungary. Continue reading
Record: Marcia Clemmitt, “Home Schooling: Do Parents Give their Children A Good Education?” CQ Researcher 24, no. 10 (7 March 2014), pp. 217-240. [Available Here]
Summary:
The CQ Researcher has long been an influential publication, especially among politicians and others connected to the United States Congress. Clemmitt is a veteran journalist who has provided in-depth analysis of several educational issues in the past. She brings her wide experience and the publication’s resources together here on the topic of homeschooling.
Clemmitt’s study reads like a very long newspaper article. It does not develop a single coherent theme. It is not itself a piece of research. Rather, it serves as a sort of précis of most of the important themes and trends in U.S. homeschooling. Long time observers of the scene will find much that is familiar here, but it is all clearly and ably summarized. Continue reading
Record: Melissa Sherfinski, “Contextualizing the Tools of a Classical and Christian Homeschooling Mother-Teacher” in Curriculum Inquiry 4, no. 2 (March 2014): 169-203.
Summary: Sherfinski, a professor in West Virginia University’s College of Education and Human Services, has published widely on school reform issues ranging from class size reduction to universal pre-kindergarten programs. This is her first published article on homeschooling, though she has been delivering conference papers about homeschooling mothers since 2010.
In this piece Sherfinski profiles a single homeschooling mother pseudonymously named April Greene. Greene has two boys, ages 11 and 12, whom she has always homeschooled. Due to the influence of an older sister and another respected friend she has decided to embrace the classical education model currently in fashion among many Christian homeschoolers. Continue reading
Record: Albert Cheng, “Does Homeschooling or Private Schooling Promote Political Intolerance? Evidence from a Christian University” in Journal of School Choice 8, no. 1 (2014): 49-68. [Abstract Here]
Summary and Critique: Cheng, a doctoral student at the University of Arkansas, here reports the results of a quantitative study comparing college students who were homeschooled with those who attended public and private schools on a measure of political tolerance. Continue reading
Record: Roger Marples, “Parents’ Rights and Educational Provision” in Studies in the Philosophy and Education 33, no. 1 (January 2014): 23-39.
Summary: Marples, a Principal Lecturer in Education at University of Roehampton in London, here makes a spirited argument against the legitimacy of non-government schooling in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Marples begins by asserting that the claims of parental “rights” go back to Lockean notions of property rights and to claims by philosophers like Robert Nozick and Charles Fried that the child is an “extension” of the parent. Marples disagrees. For him, “treating children as mere appendages to their parents is both to disrespect and undermine their moral status.” (p. 24)
Instead of rights, Marples argues, parents have custodial responsibility for their children. Continue reading
Record: Xiaoming Sheng, “Confucian Work and Homeschooling: A Case Study of Homeschooling in Shanghai” in Education and Urban Society, XX, No. X (2013), 1-17. [abstract here]
Summary:
The article under review here is a condensed version of a 2011 work by Sheng, recently reissued by Sense Publishers and available here.
Sheng begins by reminding readers of the profound economic changes that have taken place in China since market-based reforms were implemented in 1978. Most significant for this study has been the rise of a large middle class in several of China’s cities. Homeschooling, argues Sheng, has emerged along with this middle class in such cities as Beijing and Shanghai.
A previous study Sheng describes (but does not cite) had found that homeschooling parents in Beijing were middle class Christians frustrated with the inflexible, standardized-test obsessed Chinese education system. Sheng had become aware of a group of homeschooling parents in Shanghai and decided to compare them to this Beijing group. Continue reading
