Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018
Homeschooling: How Children, Who Are Homeschooled, Develop
Cognitively and Socially
Christen King
Bridgewater College
Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018
Homeschooling: How Children, Who Are Homeschooled, Develop
Cognitively and Socially
Many people have discussed for a number of years about putting their children into public home schooling them. By 2001, one million (roughly 2% of school aged population) were being homeschooled (Lines, p.1). In Patricia Lines article, it stated that homeschooled children, most of the time, come from two parent homes that are religious, conservative, white, and better educated (Lines, p.1). Homeschooling has increased over the years. At first, only a few states allowed families to homeschool their children. Before this time, families that normally choose to homeschool come from all major ethnic, cultural, religious, background and all income levels (Lines p.1). Typically, when a family decides to homeschool their children, the mother takes the lead and does most of the schooling. The father sometimes will help but, it is mostly the mother (Lines p.1). Unfortunately, homeschooled children are normally perceived in a negative light. One parent stated, “The parents have real emotional problems themselves,” another statement later in the article states, “They need to realize the serious harm they are doing to their children in the long run, educationally, and socially,” another says that “the majority of homeschooled children are socially handicapped” (Medlin, pg. 1). When the article is saying they are doing harm to their children, they mean that since they are not in public schools around peers and teachers, they are not being taught how to act around others, so they are harming their social development. A few of the articles talk about how most parents who put their children into public schools are against the whole idea of homeschooling their Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 children. “People disagree about whether homeschooling helps or hinders a child’s social development. Homeschooling children spend less time with their peers and more time with people of different ages” (Lines p. 2). Two of my articles said that “92% of public-school superintendents believe that homeschooled children do not receive adequate socialization experiences” (Medlin 2000). Another article by Richard Medlin stated the same as the Lines article and added that “the study of parents whose children attended public schools believed that 61% of children were isolated” (Medlin, pg. 1). He continues to talk about how the parents of the homeschooled children are not concerned about their children’s social development skills. The parents tend to be confident in their child’s social skills. “Homeschooling parents care about their child’s social development skills. They are committed to providing positive socialization experiences” (Medlin, pg. 1). The parents believe that “socialization is best achieved by being in an age-integrated setting under the auspices of family” (Medlin, pg. 1).
The parents are providing positive socialization experiences by integrating them into social activities (Medlin, pg. 1). Contrary to popular belief, the articles have swayed my beliefs about homeschooling and their children’s social development. Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018
This pathway model is to show what I researched and found about my Homeschooling topic. The three categories are Parent Involvement, Structure in Homeschooling and Time
Spent in Formal Instruction, and Time Spent in Social Contact. These categories all connect to cognitive development and socioemotional skills.
The number of homeschooled children is over 2.2 million people (Ray, pg. 1).
Homeschooling is now the fastest growing form of education. It is growing in minorities, about
15% of families are non-White and non-Hispanic (Ray, pg. 1). Homeschooling did not start becoming popular until the late 19th century, when parents “began to see schooling as an opportunity for upward mobility. Schools became more professionalized with more emphasis on pedagogy and student management” (Grubb, pg. 4). Before the 19th century, homeschooling was seen as a common Christian morality and that regardless of your denomination, the school was to be based on the Bible and be the moral educator of the nation. Homeschooling was Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 sorely based on religion before the 19th century (Grubb, pg. 3). In some states homeschooling was not even legalized yet because of states attendance laws but even then, some parents went ahead and still chose to educate their children at home. Two educational theorists, John
Holt and Raymond Moore, started to inform and inspire parents on why they should start homeschooling their children. Holt and Moore essentially founded the homeschool movement.
They believed that “public schools were by nature bureaucratic, inhumane settings that sought to rank, and sort children using discriminatory standards and make them into docile and obedient citizens” (Grubb, pg. 4). They wrote an article informing people about how homeschooling children can help them learn best through unstructured real-life experiences in a nurturing home environment and encouraged “unschooling” (Grubb, pg.4). They stated in their article that “parents and the home are the wisest educators” (Franzosa, pg. 121).
There are reasons why parents choose to educate their children at home. They are,
“concern about environment at the schools, to provide religious instruction, and dissatisfaction with academic instruction” (Isenberg, pg. 399). The parents that are educating their children at home purely based on religion are the largest and fastest growing group out of the three
(Grubb, pg. 6). Most of the time, the academic achievement of their child is a secondary thought and is put after religious beliefs. 30% of the children are homeschooled because of parents wanting to incorporate religious instruction (Isenberg, pg. 401). For parents that are concerned with their child’s academic instruction, 48% of parents have decided to homeschool their children based on how schools instruct their students. “The poorer the academic quality of a school, the more chance of the parents homeschooling their child” (Isenberg, pg. 404). An Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 example Isenberg gives is Wisconsin schools. “The school district in Wisconsin had an increase in homeschooling because of a decrease in math test scores” (Isenberg, pg. 404). “An estimated
50 to 75% of parents who homeschool design their own curriculum to meet the needs of their children as opposed to buying the pre-packaged products on the market today” (Grubb & Lines, pg. 7). Finally, the concern about the environment at schools connects with the second one in the way that when the math scores go down, parents are wanting their children to go to private schools but most of the time parents do not like the environment of the private schools, so they go into homeschooling their child. Another category that some parents choose to homeschool is behavioral and/or special needs. 14% of parents homeschool their children in this category.
This normally happens with older children. (Isenberg, pg. 407). Another reason is to form stronger family bonds (Grubb, pg. 6). Some other reasons are to be able to customize any lesson or activity based off of each child and to provide a safer environment away from violence and drugs (Ray, pg. 1).
“Homeschooling appears to be continuing to change and is beginning to reflect our mainstream society. There appears to be a growing number of well-educated, relatively affluent parents who are choosing homeschooling in order to improve the educational achievement of their children in order to avoid what the view as problem-ridden public schools” (Grubb, pg. 6).
When it comes to academics, research has shown that homeschooled children “outperform their public-school counterparts”, “regardless of race, age, and parent educational level, homeschooled children perform at a higher achievement level when tested on standardized tests and compared to all students nationwide” (Grubb, pg. 8). In homeschooled children’s Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 social development, they appear socially, have opportunities for interaction with other children and adults, and are emotionally well-adjusted (Grubb, pg. 8). Looking at a variety of articles, I have found these four independent variables to be very important in the homeschooling process.
Parental Involvement
Parent involvement is defined as “a parents’ direct involvement with students’ academic assignments” (Barwegen et. al pg. 43). Another way to define parental involvement, as
Barwegen says, is to divide it into four categories, helping, supporting, controlling, and participating. (Barwegen et. al, pg. 43). In the study by Barwegen, it showed that parental involvement did relate to a students’ academic achievement. In this study it said that it also related to the parents’ socioeconomic status and parenting styles. “Activities at home, such as discussions, assistance, and parents giving advice had a greater positive effect on students and helped them with their academic achievement” (Barwegen et. al, pg. 44). The results of the study were that with parental involvement, to create higher student academic achievement, parents “regularly asked about how their school work was coming and regularly supported their student with their school work” (Barwegen et. al, pg. 48). Barwegen found that parental involvement had a positive impact on the children’s education process and it play an important role in their lives. Barwegen proposed that “the elevated test scores of homeschooled children reflected greatly on parental involvement rather than having general education” (Chang et. al, pg. 196). He found that students with higher perceived parental involvement had significantly Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 higher standardized test scores than students with low perceived parental involvement. (Chang et. al, pg. 196).
In another study done by Ray, he looked at the correlation between academic achievement and home environment. He found that “Homeschoolers who obtained the highest scores came from high-income families with university educated parents” (Chang et. al, pg. 196). This study showed that homeschoolers with parents that have a high income are more likely to spend more time and support their child in homeschool work. This study goes along with parental involvement because of the parent’s socioeconomic status. Research states that another category that fits into parental involvement is how educated the homeschool “teacher” is, whether it is the mom or the dad. A study done by Isenberg says that the better educated the mothers may make more effective teachers and have a higher standardized test score
(Isenberg, pg. 406). The mother’s education plays a factor because if the mother doesn’t have the knowledge to teach her children, then she will have a hard time getting their test scores up because of her education level. In another study done by Ray, he found that “Homeschool parents have more education than public school parents in the general population; 66.3% of the fathers and 62.5% of the mothers have a college degree or a higher educational attainment.
Which then affected their students’ academic achievement levels” (Ray, pg. 43).
Structure in Homeschooling Process and Time Spent in Formal Instruction
Structure in homeschooling and time spent in formal instruction matter when it comes to homeschooling a child. Studies have shown that these two things correlate with parental involvement and parent’s educational degree. In a study done by Chang, she found that “the Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 children who received structured homeschooling were superior to the children enrolled in public schools” (Chang et. al, pg. 199). The structure of homeschooling process is more effective in some researchers’ eyes because of the small “class sizes”, being able to receive more individualized instruction, and more academic time spent on core subjects such as reading, writing, and math (Chang et. al, pg. 199). To go along with these advantages of homeschooling,
Grubb states in her findings that most parents believe that “their children can learn at their own pace better at home than at school and there is an advantage of having a flexible schedule to teach the desired curriculum. Whereas in public schools you do not get a flexible schedule to teach to the desired curriculum and the children do not have a choice when it comes to pace”
(Grubb, pg. 13-14). According to Grubb, she found that “an estimated 50 to 75% of parents who homeschool design their own curriculum to meet the needs of their children as opposed to purchasing one of the pre-packaged products on the market today” (Grubb, pg. 7). Ray found that some parents are choosing to create their own lessons for their children and it has been found that most of these parents that do create their own “curriculum”, are parents that have the higher educational level. Within teaching to their own curriculum, “the ‘structured learning time’ is during with the child is engaged in learning activities planned by the parent” (Chang et. al, pg. 201). Ray also concluded with that “students in the homeschooling program that are enrolled in a full-service curriculum did not perform differently in their academic achievement than students who were on their own designed curriculum” (Chang et. al, pg. 201). This means that it doesn’t matter if the curriculum is made by the parents or if it is bought in a store, the students achieve at the same rate. It was found that, “homeschooling may advance the Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 development of academic skills (measured by standardized testing) beyond what is experienced by attending public schools” (Chang et. al, pg. 201).
Time Spent in Social Contact
What is socialization? Socialization can mean “social activity: giving children the chance to play with friends and participate in traditional extracurricular activities like sports, schools plays, and the senior prom. Others mean social influence: teaching children to conform to majority norms. And some mean social exposure: introducing children to the culture and values of different groups of people” (Medlin, pg. 107). So many argue if homeschoolers receive enough socialization versus a public-school student. “Homeschooling shelters children from society, they suggested, but public schools ensure that children will grow up to be “complete people” by teaching key social skills such as cooperation, respect for others, and self-control”
(Medlin, pg. 108). Homeschooling parents disagree on everything that public school parents say. “They describe public schools as rigid and authoritarian institutions where passive conformity is rewarded, where peer interactions are too often hostile or derisive or manipulative, and where children must contend with a dispiriting ideological and moral climate.
Homeschooling parents argue that this kind of environment can stifle children’s individuality and harm their self-esteem. They say it can make children dependent, insecure, or even antisocial” (Medlin, pg. 109).
Homeschooling parents try their best to incorporate great socialization skills for their children. They realize that they have to put in the extra effort, so their children get the best socialization skills they can. They believe that “socialization is best achieved in age-integrated Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 settings under the auspices of family” (Medlin, pg. 109). In a study completed by Delahooke, they found that “homeschooled children actually participate in more activities than children from public schools” (Medlin, pg. 111). These children that are homeschooled are in a wide range of activities outside of their homes like, “organized sports, scouts, 4-H, hobby groups, church activities, music and dance lessons, and playing with friends” (Medlin, pg. 111). In the same research study, they found that children that are homeschooled spend very little time watching television. “Homeschooled children in the 4th grade, fewer than 3% of them watch more than three hours of television a day. The public schooled 4th graders nationwide are 38% watching 3 hours of television a day” (Medlin, pg. 111).
After researchers looked at these activities they concluded that homeschool parents were giving their children the opportunity to develop leadership skills. “Homeschooling helped them develop the leadership skills they needed” (Medlin, pg. 2). “The parents were fostering their children’s development in categories, some were independence, social relationships, and social skills” (Medlin, pg. 111). In a study done by Carpenter, he found that homeschooled children had a social contact with 49 different people in a month’s time and public-school students met with 56 individuals. Public school children met with only peers and homeschooled children met with peers, younger aged children, and adults (Medlin, pg. 111). Another study that was completed by Medlin, observed how diverse the children’s social contacts were. He found that “homeschooled children regularly associated with adults outside their own family; the elderly; people from a different socioeconomic, religious, or ethnic background than their own; and children who attend public schools” (Medlin, pg. 112). Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 When it comes to children’s social development, there are factors that go into social development, like behavior. In another study completed by Medlin, he found that “children who attend a public school are aggressive, loud, and competitive towards others. Whereas homeschooled children are friendly, introduced themselves, initiated conversation, cooperated with others, invited uninvolved children, and took turns” (Medlin, pg. 2). A study that Medlin completed was one where he gave homeschool and public-school children a Social Skills Rating
System. It measures cooperation, empathy, assertiveness, and self-control. Medlin found that
“homeschooled children’s social skills are consistently higher than those of public-school students. Girls were more empathetic and assertive than boys and in lower grades more self- controlled. The boys scored higher on cooperation” (Medlin, pg. 5).
In conclusion, all three of these categories, parental involvement, structure in homeschooling and time spent in formal instruction, and time spent in social contact, have proved a point and swayed my beliefs about homeschooling. Researching all of this information helped me understand what homeschooling really is and the benefits to it. It has a lot to do with the parents and how they are involved in their children’s lives and school work, it has a lot to do with the type of instruction they receive from their parents and how well their cognitive development is being achieved, and finally it has a lot to do with socialization and how they are able to get social contact with people so they know how to act in the real world.
Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 References
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https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED427138
Eric J. Isenberg (2007) What Have We Learned About Homeschooling?,
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10.1080/01619560701312996
Lines, P. M. (2001). Homeschooling. ERIC DIGEST,1-2.
Martin-Chang, S., Gould, O. N., & Meuse, R. E. (2011). The impact of schooling on academic
achievement: Evidence from homeschooled and traditionally schooled
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Medlin, R. G. (2000). Homeschooling and the Question of Socialization. Peabody
Journal of Education,75(1&2), 107-123.
Ray, Brian (2010) "Academic Achievement and Demographic Traits of Homeschool Students: A
Nationwide Study," Academic Leadership: The Online Journal: Vol. 8 : Iss. 1 , Article 7.
Available at: https://scholars.fhsu.edu/alj/vol8/iss1/7
R., & D., B. (2014, December 31). Research Facts on Homeschooling. Retrieved from
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED556234