USA’s Rising Homeschool Population: A Qualitative Phenomenology of Caregivers’ Rationalizations to Homeschool – Summary and Comments
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There have been numerous attempts to determine the reasons why parents choose to home educate their children. A doctoral dissertation by Annora E. Gilliss contributes to the body of literature on this topic and attempts to answer this question utilizing an analytical framework not heretofore utilized in the context of home education.
Rather than using the term “parents,” Dr. Gilliss uses a more encompassing term “caregivers,” which seems appropriate as one of her in-depth survey participants was, in fact, a grandparent home educator. She also uses “rationalizations” rather than “reasons” to elucidate the foundational purposes of the decision to home educate for this group of study participants.
Methodology
The researcher purposefully selected home educating families that were members of a large social media group, the size of which contributed to her ability to ensure anonymity, as well as seek geographic and experiential diversity. She also assigned pseudonyms to interview participants for further protection of study participants. A total of 21 families completed a survey of predominately open-ended questions intended to answer the following research questions:
Q1: How did 21 caregivers across the USA describe their homeschooling realities, lived experiences, perceptions, and rationales?
Although 17 of the 21 survey participants were willing to do an additional in-depth interview (a remarkable rate of 80%), the researcher delimited (time and resource constraints) the participation to four, which explored three additional research questions:
Q2: How did 4 caregivers across the USA describe the components of their homeschooling environments?
Q3: How did 4 caregivers across the USA describe their ease-of-access to educational options given the regulations of their locales?
Q4: Through the lens of Friedman and Hechter’s Rational Choice Theory (RCT), how did 4 caregivers across the USA describe their rationale for choosing to homeschool?
The researcher transcribed the recorded interviews, and in combination with the survey responses, coded the data to discover emergent themes which were analyzed through the lens of RCT. This was the previously mentioned analytical framework that the researcher identified as haven rarely been used in the realm educational research and never before in the sub-realm of home education research.
Theoretical Framework
The researcher describes RCT as a “theoretical approach examines the risks versus benefits of a given choice by studying individual thought processes that are turned into action.” She used this framework to research 1) the availability of information for study participants, 2) hierarchy of preferences (values and subjective assessments), 3) opportunity costs (differences in resource allocation), and 4) institutional constraints (relational influencers such as family members, community, and laws). Her goal was “to gain a better understanding of the rationale behind why there has been a recent and continued rise in caregivers choosing homeschool approaches over institutionalized education settings for their children.”
Findings
The researcher developed seven emergent themes from the data analysis including: 1) Positive and Personalized Homeschool Culture, 2) Negative Public School Culture, 3) Family Values, 4) Barriers to Homeschooling Alternatives, 5) School Choice and COVID, 6) Caregivers’ Past Experiences, and 7) Supportive Resources.
The following is a brief summary of the top three themes, which were either unanimous or near-unanimous data points given by the research participants. All survey and interview participants expressed the experiential belief that home education gave them the opportunity create a unique and flexible program of instruction which enabled them to maximize their child’s achievement (in more areas than just academics). All but one participant also claimed understanding of detrimental factors, including physical dangers, inappropriate instructional content, and undesirable influences within the institutionalized schooling system. The third of the top three themes was the desire to pass on family values, which was predominantly described in terms of religion, but was also highlighted as a positive by one family with an atheistic worldview. These themes and four others developed by the researcher constituted the rationalization for choosing home education as the preferred method of education for their children.
Conclusions
The researcher drew three conclusions, from the aggregation of these themes, including: 1) That caregivers in this study have a resolved commitment for a positive and personalized educational setting for their children, 2) that the caregivers in this study are ready and willing to share the realities of this model of education, and 3) that these caregivers’ decision-making rationales in this study embody the four main components of RCT.
NHERI Comments:
This research may not provide earth-shattering revelations, especially to veteran home educators, but it does provide further evidence to the efficacy of home education which is useful for those who are considering home education, those who are just beginning their home education journey, researchers of home education, and policymakers who may not have a broad understanding of home education
One striking observation, which hopefully portends greater openness moving forward, was the willingness of these participants to share, even champion, home education. Whereas home educators have heretofore seemed reluctant to participate in research or educational studies, perhaps the winds are changing as the popularity of home education grows and its efficacy becomes harder to challenge based on empirical data.
References
Gilliss, A. E. (2022). USA’s rising homeschool population: A qualitative phenomenology of caregivers’ rationalizations to homeschool. Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (ProQuest No. 29995519)