{"id":513,"date":"2012-12-10T14:52:38","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T14:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=513"},"modified":"2014-02-12T19:24:04","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T19:24:04","slug":"a-profile-of-homeschooling-why-do-south-dakota-parents-homeschool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=513","title":{"rendered":"A PROFILE OF HOMESCHOOLING: Why do South Dakota Parents Homeschool?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record:<\/strong> Bonnie F. Boschee and Floyd Boschee, \u201cA Profile of Homeschooling in South Dakota\u201d in Journal of School Choice: Research, Theory, and Reform<\/em> 5, no. 3 (2011): 281-299.<\/p>\n

Summary: <\/strong>Floyd Boschee, emeritus professor of education<\/a> at University of South Dakota, and Bonnie Boschee, assistant professor of education <\/a>at Northern State University, here present the results of a survey of South Dakota homeschooling parents concerning their motivations for doing so.<\/p>\n

The article begins with a literature review that strikes an advocacy tone and reports the results of Ray\u2019s studies of academic achievement uncritically, going beyond even Ray himself to make very explicit claims about the superiority of homeschooling to public education, without Ray\u2019s customary cautionary statements about inferring direct causality and without any discussion of the biased nature of Ray\u2019s samples, consisting as they do of recruits who are promised that their participation in the studies will be used to further the political goals of HSLDA.\u00a0 For much more on this see my review of Ray\u2019s work here<\/a> and here<\/a>.\u00a0 The authors provide similarly weak treatments of socialization and the history of homeschooling.<\/p>\n

Next the authors give us their methodology.\u00a0 They got the names of 217 South Dakota homeschoolers from \u201cselected South Dakota homeschool associations,\u201d (p. 285) and sent out a survey.\u00a0 They got 69 surveys back, and that\u2019s the evidentiary basis for their conclusions.\u00a0 I was extremely disappointed when I read this part of the paper.\u00a0 We really don\u2019t need any more convenience samples of parental motivation.\u00a0 They tell us nothing important or interesting.\u00a0 Even what they do tell us can\u2019t be generalized at all, for the sample isn\u2019t representative of any population.\u00a0 It\u2019s really no better than anecdote.\u00a0 Homeschoolers who for whatever reason don\u2019t belong to the preferred homeschool organizations aren\u2019t included in the tally, nor are the 68% of parents who decided not to return the form.<\/p>\n

Regardless, what do the authors learn from their sample?\u00a0 That the parents in this sample were motivated first by a desire to strengthen family bonds, second to provide religious instruction, third to protect children from negative peer pressure, and forth by frustration with various aspects of public schools (lack of good character education, too large class sizes, lack of \u201cAmerican values\u201d being taught, not enough academics, hypercompetitiveness, concerns about safety and discipline, etc.).<\/p>\n

Reasons not deemed important by most parents included special education needs and racial reasons.\u00a0 Racism was at the very bottom of the list.<\/p>\n

Demographically, almost every one of the parents who returned surveys report attending religious services at least weekly, use prepackaged curriculum, use libraries, own a computer, and take advantage of homeschooling groups and religious social experiences.\u00a0 Many other attributes and preferences are reported on in the study to which relatively fewer families ascribe.<\/p>\n

Appraisal:\u00a0 <\/strong>Disappointing on all counts.<\/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: Bonnie F. Boschee and Floyd Boschee, \u201cA Profile of Homeschooling in South Dakota\u201d in Journal of School Choice: Research, Theory, and Reform 5, no. 3 (2011): 281-299. Summary: Floyd Boschee, emeritus professor of education at University of South Dakota, … 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":[19],"tags":[439,435,46,436,63,437,441,438,440],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parental-motivation","tag-and-reform","tag-bonnie-f-boschee","tag-brian-ray","tag-floyd-boschee","tag-hslda","tag-journal-of-school-choice-research","tag-northern-state-university","tag-theory","tag-university-of-south-dakota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","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=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1125,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions\/1125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}