{"id":251,"date":"2012-10-23T14:10:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T14:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=251"},"modified":"2014-02-12T19:37:51","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T19:37:51","slug":"why-state-sanctions-fail-to-deter-home-education-a-look-at-homeschooling-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=251","title":{"rendered":"WHY STATE SANCTIONS FAIL TO DETER HOME EDUCATION: A Look at Homeschooling in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record:<\/strong> Thomas Spiegler, \u201cWhy State Sanctions Fail to Deter Home Education: An Analysis of Home Education in Germany and its Implications for Home Education Policies\u201d in Theory and Research in Education<\/em> 7, no. 3 (November 2009): 297-309<\/p>\n

Summary: <\/strong>Thomas Spiegler, a sociology professor at Friedensau Adventist University<\/a> in Germany, draws some policy implications from his award-winning 2007 doctoral dissertation<\/a>, which was the first ever study of homeschooling in Germany.<\/p>\n

Spiegler begins with an orientation to homeschooling in Germany.\u00a0 Essentially it\u2019s illegal.\u00a0 Though compulsory schooling has existed in Germany since the 17th century (you could make a good case that it was invented there), there were always exceptions built into the law for private options.\u00a0 But in 1938 (yes, under Hitler) the law was tightened and \u201ccriminal consequences in case of contraventions\u201d were initiated (p. 299). \u00a0\u00a0 Despite this situation, homeschooling has grown in popularity in recent decades, as both conservative Christians and leftist child liberationists have turned to it in protest against a public school system they find inflexible and authoritarian.\u00a0 Currently Spiegler estimates that there are anywhere from 600 to 1000 children being homeschooled in Germany.\u00a0 The number would be larger, but there has lately been a growing trend among German homeschoolers to emigrate to more hospitable countries rather than suffer the consequences of breaking the law, consequences ranging from steep fines to prison time to loss of custody of their children.<\/p>\n

Why, given such stringent sanctions, has homeschooling grown in Germany?\u00a0 Partly because those responsible for meting out judgment often soften the blow.\u00a0 Spiegler reports several examples of government officials surreptitiously looking the other way, concluding that there is not much more support for high fines or imprisonment than there is for homeschooling itself.\u00a0 Additionally, many German homeschoolers view their actions not as criminal activity but as civil disobedience, appealing to conscience and to the German Constitution and international law, acting without violence, and sometimes getting sympathetic press coverage.\u00a0 Finally, German homeschoolers have a personal narrative that gives them a sense of self-worth.\u00a0 Many see themselves as \u201cfreedom fighters or pioneers of an enlightenment.\u201d (p. 304)\u00a0 In their view, it is not homeschoolers who are deviant but the backward German law that is so at odds with the rest of the civilized world on this question.<\/p>\n

Given that sanctions have not stopped the movement, Spiegler argues in this article\u2019s last section that Germany should legalize, but regulate, homeschooling.\u00a0 He adopts Rob Reich\u2019s contention that three parties have legitimate interests in the child\u2019s education:\u00a0 the parents, the child, and the broader society.\u00a0 Just as a totally unregulated environment privileges the interests of the parents and prejudices against the interests of the child and society, so Germany\u2019s total prohibition tilts the balance too far away from the parent and child.\u00a0 Moreover, since homeschooling families are forced to go off the grid, prohibition ironically means that the State cannot determine whether the child\u2019s needs are being met at all.\u00a0 Better would be a balanced policy that would allow parents to homeschool but would require them to register with the government, meet academic standards, and submit to testing to ensure progress.<\/p>\n

At the end of the paper Spiegler entertains two possible objections.\u00a0 Some Germans may fear that if homeschooling is legalized there will be an explosion of homeschoolers.\u00a0 Spiegler counters that in nearly all European countries where it is legal \u201cthe percentage of home educated children is far below 1%.\u201d (p. 307).\u00a0 The second objection is that many parents would likely reject even reasonable state regulations.\u00a0 Here he counters that most homeschoolers would cooperate, and those who don\u2019t would face sanctions that this time, given a more reasonable law, would be enforced with more consistency.<\/p>\n

Appraisal: <\/strong>I found this article fascinating to read, largely because its context is so different from the United States’ political discussions.\u00a0 In the U.S., any suggestion of government regulation is met with angry anathemas by a vocal, organized, and powerful homeschooling population.\u00a0 Rob Reich’s regulatory proposals in particular have for many years been anathematized by homeschooling advocates.\u00a0 Yet in the German context Reich\u2019s prescriptions seem generous and liberating.<\/p>\n

Spiegler writes with a strong voice and is clearly up on the American literature.\u00a0 I wish his dissertation were available in English, for if this article is a good indicator, it\u2019s probably a great piece of work.<\/p>\n

Milton Gaither, Messiah College, author of Homeschool: An American History<\/a>\"\"<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer<\/strong>:\u00a0 The views expressed in reviews are not the official views of ICHER or of its members.\u00a0 For more information about ICHER\u2019s Reviews, please see the \u00ab\u00a0About these Reviews \u00bb Section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record: Thomas Spiegler, \u201cWhy State Sanctions Fail to Deter Home Education: An Analysis of Home Education in Germany and its Implications for Home Education Policies\u201d in Theory and Research in Education 7, no. 3 (November 2009): 297-309 Summary: Thomas Spiegler, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[298,297,59,115,198],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-adolf-hitler","tag-friedensau-adventist-university","tag-rob-reich","tag-theory-and-research-in-education","tag-thomas-spiegler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1155,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/1155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}