Gender and the Politics of Homeschooling
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 9-2011 Resisting Schools, Reproducing Families: Gender and the Politics of Homeschooling Brian Paul Kapitulik University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Kapitulik, Brian Paul, "Resisting Schools, Reproducing Families: Gender and the Politics of Homeschooling" (2011). Open Access Dissertations. 469. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/469 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RESISTING SCHOOLS, REPRODUCING FAMILIES: GENDER AND THE POLITICS OF HOMESCHOOLING A Dissertation Presented by BRIAN P. KAPITULIK Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2011 Sociology © Copyright by Brian P. Kapitulik 2011 All Rights Reserved RESISTING SCHOOLS, REPRODUCING FAMILIES: GENDER AND THE POLITICS OF HOMESCHOOLING A Dissertation Presented By BRIAN P. KAPITULIK Approved as to style and content by: ___________________________________ Naomi Gerstel, Chair ___________________________________ Robert Zussman, Member ___________________________________ Dan Clawson, Member ___________________________________ Kathryn McDermott _____________________________________ Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Department Chair Sociology ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are a number of important people without whom this dissertation never would have been completed. First, I want to thank my chair, Naomi Gerstel. From the first time we met to discuss writing a dissertation about homeschooling, to the meeting we had to schedule the defense, Naomi‟s support, encouragement, and thoughtful feedback have been invaluable. Bob Zussman was extremely helpful and supportive throughout the process. He pushed me to think carefully about all phases of this dissertation. Many thanks to Dan Clawson who graciously agreed to join my committee at the later stages. I appreciate his insights and suggestions for improving this dissertation. Thank you to Katie McDermott for serving on my committee and offering her insights from an educational perspective, and to Nancy Whittier for helping me conceive of this project, especially at the earliest stages. Finally, without the unwavering love and support of my wife, Liz, I am pretty sure that this dissertation would never have been completed. She deserves a lot of credit (and maybe an honorary doctorate) for our countless conversations about gender, family, and homeschooling. Most of all, thank you for running interference with our children, Izzy and Avery, so I could steal away and write this dissertation, piece by piece, an hour at a time. iv ABSTRACT RESISTING SCHOOLS, REPRODUCING FAMILIES: GENDER AND THE POLITICS OF HOMESCHOOLING SEPTEMBER 2011 BRIAN P. KAPITULIK, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON M.A., NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Naomi Gerstel The contemporary homeschooling movement sits at the intersection of several important social trends: widespread concern about the effectiveness and safety of public schools, feminist challenges to the patriarchal family structure, anxiety about the state of the family as an institution, and challenging economic conditions. The central concern of this dissertation is to make sense of homeschooling within this broader context. Data were gathered through interviews with forty-five homeschooling parents, approximately half of whom are religious and half of whom are secular. The interviews were organized around three central questions: 1) What are the frames that parents use to justify homeschooling? 2) What are their particular tactics or methods for homeschooling? 3) What are the components of homeschoolers‟ collective identity? I argue that homeschooling bears the imprint of broader changes regarding the gender system and contemporary family life, as well as other economic and cultural changes. Both religious and secular parents come to homeschooling out of shared concerns about schools being ineffective and incapable of catering to their children‟s individual needs. They also share concerns about the state of the family and the general v moral decline of society. Religious and secular parents differ in their actual practice of homeschooling, depending on their particular conceptions of childhood, but they are alike in the fact that it is women who do most of the homeschooling work. These parents are also different in their collective identities. Religious parents regard homeschooling as just something they do. However, secular parents characterize homeschooling as part of who they are as moral people and this compels them to employ various strategies of identity work. In the end, I argue that this movement is unlikely to contribute to meaningful social change. I base this conclusion on the fact that the homeschooling movement contains two major contradictions: 1) This movement is simultaneously resisting one alleged failing institution – schools - while reproducing another highly criticized institution – the patriarchal nuclear family. 2) This movement offers individual solutions to social problems. While the participants have many concerns about social institutions, their answer is to withdraw their participation and retreat into their own families. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEGMENTS……………………………………………….…………………iv ABSTRACT...……………………………………………………………….…….……....v CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION……………………..……………………………...………………..1 A Brief History of Homeschooling…...……………………………….…………..3 Pedagogues and Radical School Reform…..………………….…………..3 Ideologues: Religion and Authority…………………………….…………5 Inside Homeschooling: What We Know……………………………….………....6 How Many?..................................................................................................7 Why Homeschool?.......................................................................................8 Who is Homeschooling?..............................................................................8 The Problem With Schools……………………………………………………....10 Gender and Family: A Liberal Feminist Critique…………….……………….…13 Contemporary Family Life……………………………………………....15 Backlash Against Family Change………………………………………..18 What Kind of Movement Is This?.........................................................................20 Family, Gender and Social Movements………………………………………….22 Frames…………………………………………………………………....23 Tactics……………………………………………………………………24 Collective Identity ……………………………………………………….26 Outcomes……………………………………………………………...…28 Research Questions and Organization of the Dissertation……………………….29 2. RESEARCH METHODS……………………………………………………………..32 vii Research Design and Methodology……………………………………..……….34 Data Collection Part One: Locating Families……………………………………36 Data Collection Part Two: The Interviews………………………………………39 Data Analysis…………………………………………………………...………..46 3. WHY HOMESCHOOL?: THE CULTURAL BELIEFS OF HOMESCHOOLING PARENTS……..…………………………………………………………………………48 Precious Childhood/Intensive Mothering………………………………………..49 Kids Need More, Kids Need Less………………………….…………….54 Decline of the Family………………………………………….…………………57 Family Unity…………………………………………………………..…63 Moral Decline (God and Nature)……………………………………….………..64 The Word of God……………………………………………………..….64 The Wisdom of Nature…………………………………………………...67 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….72 4. HOMESCHOOLING TACTICS……………………………………….……………..74 Putting Ideas Into Practice……………………………………….………………75 “Unschooling” in Secular Families………………………………………76 Schooling at Home in Religious Families……………………………….83 Homeschooling as Mothers‟ Work……………………………………………....89 Secular: Biology is Destiny…Sort of………………………………...….91 The Godly Family…………………………………………………..……97 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...102 5. COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES IN THE HOMESCHOOLING MOVEMENT……………………………...……………………...................................105 Identity Work and Moral Identities…………………………………………..…105 Homeschoolers‟ Collective Identities……………………..……………………108 viii Who Are We?: How Homeschoolers See Themselves…………………110 Anyone Can Do it, But Homeschooling Isn‟t For Everybody: The Moral Identity Work of Secular Homeschoolers ………………………………………………………..……….114 Preserving a Moral Identity………………………………….…………119 Gender and Secular Homeschoolers‟ Moral Identity Work: Quasi-Activist Parenting………………………………………………………………………………..122 Conclusion………………………………………………………...……………129 6. CONCLUSION…………………………...………………………….……………....131 Contradictions of Homeschooling…………………………………………...…134 Resistance and Reproduction……………………………...……………134 Individual Solution to Social Problems…………………………..…….136 What Does All This Mean?: Implictions and Suggestions for Further Study….138 Families…………………………………………………………………139 Education Officials…………………………………………………..…140 Social Movement Scholars…………………………………………......141 A Note on Studying Privilege………………………………………………..…143 APPENDICES A. PRE-INTERVIEW SURVEY…………………..…………………………..145 B. TABLES OF SELECT CHARACTERISTICS OF HOMESCHOOLING FAMILIES……………………………………………………..…………….…148 C. INTERVIEW PROTOCOL..………………………………………..……….150 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………..……...…..154 ix CHAPTER