HOMESCHOOLERS AND VACCINATION IN CALIFORNIA: Exploring California’s New Law

Posted on March 29, 2019 by Milton Gaither

Record: Pamela McDonald, Rupali J. Limaye, Saad B. Omer, Alison M. Buttenheim, Salini Mohanty, Nicola P. Klein, and Daniel A. Salmon, “Exploring California’s New Law Eliminating Personal Belief Exemptions to Childhood Vaccines and Vaccine Decision-Making among Homeschooling Mothers in California” in Vaccine 37 (2019), 742-750 [abstract here]

Summary: The authors, associated with schools of public health, nursing, or vaccine study at Johns Hopkins, Emory, the University of Pennsylvania, and The Kaiser Center, here present the results of interviews with 24 homeschooling mothers in California regarding their attitudes both to childhood vaccinations generally and to California’s Senate Bill 277, which eliminated the personal belief exemption to school immunization requirements for children attending schools. Continue reading →

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THE HOMESCHOOLING CONTINUUM: Redefining Homeschooling for the 21st Century

Posted on March 19, 2019 by Milton Gaither

Record: Jennifer L. Jolly and Michael S. Matthews, “The Shifting Landscape of the Homeschooling Continuum” in Educational Review (2018). [Abstract Here]

Summary: Jolly, Associate Professor of Gifted Education at the University of Alabama, and Matthews, Director of Gifted Programs at UNC Charlotte, have collaborated on multiple occasions in the past.  In 2017 and 2018 they published a pair of qualitative studies of blogging mothers of gifted children who homeschool (reviews here and here).  Back in 2012 they collaborated with Jonathan Nester to write one of the pathbreaking articles on homeschooling and gifted learners (review here).  In this piece they offer no new empirical research but seek to incorporate their work with homeschooling families with gifted children into the broader definition of homeschooling.   Continue reading →

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METAPHORS AND EDUCATION: Comparing Homeschooling and Schooling Parents

Posted on March 6, 2019 by Marissa Donlevie

Record: Ari Neuman & Oz Guterman, “Metaphors and education: comparison of metaphors for education among parents of children in school and home education,” Pedagogy, Culture, & Society, Vol. 26 no. 3 (2018): 435-447. ISSN 1468-1366 [abstract available here]

Summary: Neuman and Guterman of Western Galilee College in Akko, Israel once again take a deeper look into the lives of home educating families; this time using metaphors as a source of measurement. Continue reading →

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UNSCHOOLING AND SOCIAL JUSTICE/MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Posted on February 26, 2019 by Marissa Donlevie

Record: Kristan Morrison, “Unschooling and Social Justice/Multicultural Education: (Un)Realized Potential” in Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives 7, no. 2 (2018): 97-117 [available here]

Summary: Morrison of Radford University performed an online survey to discover how social justice curriculum is integrated into the unschooling system.

Considering that unschooling focuses more on developing the interest of the child, there is seldom a curriculum followed by the parent. Because of this, Morrison wanted to know how much exposure unschooled children receive about ideas of social justice. Continue reading →

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FULL-TIME VIRTUAL AND BLENDED SCHOOLS: the 2018 NEPC Update

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Milton Gaither

Record:  Miron, G., Shank, C. & Davidson, C. (2018). Full-Time Virtual and Blended Schools: Enrollment, Student Characteristics, and Performance. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. [Available Here]

Summary: This is the latest of six annual reports put out by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) dating back to 2013.  For previous installments see our review of the 2016 report, which itself links to earlier reviews.

The NEPC report has long been and remains the single best source for keeping track of online virtual public schooling, or what is often called the “cybercharter” movement.  In 2016 it added coverage of “blended” schooling to its report.  Blended schools combine conventional brick-and-mortar instruction with an online component.  This new report continues with that expanded coverage.

First for the data. Continue reading →

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MAKING THE TRANSITION: Cardus Authors on Homeschooling and Adult Outcomes

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Milton Gaither

Record: David Sikkink and Sara Skiles, “Making the Transition: The Effect of School Sector on Extended Adolescence,”  Hamilton, Ontario, Cardus (April 17, 2018). Available Here.

Summary: Readers of these reviews will be very familiar with the Cardus Education Survey (CES).  It is one of the two most complete datasets available to researchers interested in studying the adult outcomes of homeschooling (the other being the National Survey of Youth and Religion [NSYR]).  Cardus has conducted two U.S. surveys to date, and the data has been used to good effect both by Cardus itself and by other researchers.  This present report draws on no new survey data.  Rather, it simply reiterates and synthesizes findings previously divulged and combines CES results with similar results from both the NSYR and another, older survey called the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).

While the bulk of the report is concerned with private Catholic, Protestant, and non-religious private schooling, homeschooling is mentioned in several places.  This review will only highlight the homeschooling findings. Continue reading →

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HOW “GOOD PARENTS” USE THEIR TIME

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Marissa Donlevie

Record: Andrea Beláňová, Katerina Machovcová, Yvona Kostelecká, & Marta McCabe, “Justifying homeschooling in Czech Republic: How “good parents” and their children use their time,” in Childhood, vol. 25, no. 4 (2018), pp. 530-543. [available here]

Summary: Beláňová, Machovcová, Kostelecká, and McCabe of Charles University in the Czech Republic sought to understand how time management can make homeschooling parents be viewed as “good parents” and how this affects the ways in which the children respond to life situations. Though the researchers used the term “parents,” they clarified in the introduction that this term in the study would refer to mothers. Continue reading →

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‘COMPULSORY SCHOOLING’ DESPITE THE LAW: Home Education in France

Posted on December 28, 2018 by Milton Gaither

Record: Philippe Bongrand, “‘Compulsory Schooling’ Despite the Law: How Education Policy Underpins the Widespread Ignorance of the Right to Home Educate in France,” Journal of School Choice 10, no. 3 (2016): 320-329. [Abstract Here]

Summary: Bongrand, an Associate Professor of Education at the Université de Cergy-Pontoise in northern France, here offers the first article ever written in English on French homeschooling.  Bongrand is currently engaged in a promising study of the records kept by French authorities on home educating families in various cities in France.  These records offer, at least theoretically, population-level data given that every French home educating family is required by law to be inspected every two years.

This article, however, is more contextual.  Bongrand begins with a general overview of the French educational situation, noting that both public and so-called “private” schools are funded by the government and share the same teachers and curricula.  Truly private schools operating outside of this nexus account for only 2.7% of all private schools in France, most of these being Montessori or Waldorf schools.  When it comes to homeschooling, in France only 20,000 children are being educated at home out of a student population of 12.3 million.  Most of these students, over 14,000 of them, are enrolled in distance education programs, mostly in the government-run National Center for Distance Education.

Though France does not require attendance at school, very few French families homeschool.  Why?  Continue reading →

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STEM and Homeschooling

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Milton Gaither

Courtney Gann and Dan Carpenter, “STEM Teaching and Learning Strategies of High School Parents With Homeschool Students,” in Education and Urban Society 50, no. 5 (2018), pp. 461-482. [Abstract Here]

Summary: Gann, an Adjunct Instructor in STEM education at Texas Tech University, and Carpenter, previously at Texas Tech but now an Assistant Professor at the University of Findlay, here present the results of a study of the methods used by homeschooling parents to teach their children science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subject matter. Continue reading →

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HOME EDUCATION IN CHINA

Posted on December 4, 2018 by Marissa Donlevie

Record: Xiaoming Sheng, “Home Education and Law in China” in Education and Urban Society 50, no. 6 (2018): 575-592 [available here]

Summary: Xiaoming Sheng, Ph.D., analyzes the legal status of home education in China. Though homeschooling is not supported by Chinese law, there has been a recent increase of home educating families in parts of China such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.  Continue reading →

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