Despite its expansion in recent years to two million students, homeschooling is the least understood component of American education. Preeminent educational scholar Joseph Murphy offers a revealing look at today's homeschooling movement. Policy makers, researchers, educators and homeschooling organizations will find answers to compelling Questions, including

This revealing and balanced portrait of homeschooling today provides a full history of the movement, demographic insights, and extensive research on how homeschooled children fare in the United States. Delving into a movement that impacts more students nationwide than the entire charter school movement, this book explores: • The history of homeschooling in America • How this movement has grown in credibility and enrollment exponentially • The current state of homeschooling, including questions about who gets homeschooled, why, and what is the success—academically and in life—of students who are homeschooled • The impact of homeschooling on the student and on American society In 2010, more than two million students were homeschooled. In the most extensive survey and analysis of research on homeschooling, spanning the birth of the movement in the 1970s to today, Homeschooling in America shines a light on one of the most important yet least understood social movements of the last forty years and explores what it means for education today.

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,0, University of Education Heidelberg, course: Developing Advanced Writing Skills, language: English, abstract: Like a majority of people, the Connollys had never imagined homeschooling as something they would do. But by the time, their daughter Elise entered sixth grade they noticed a personality change. Her grades began to drop – first a little then a lot. The Connollys tried to talk about it with her, but Elise was distant and noncommunicative. When the school year ended, and they received her report card, the Connollys felt disappointed and discouraged about the education of their only daughter. They immediately telephoned the school, but everyone was out for the summer. Consequently, they had to solve the problem on their own. It was difficult because Elise rejected talking about school until she finally gave way to tears. She explained having problems with some of her peers and with the character of some of her teachers. The Connollys felt that there were elements like peer pressure and violence in the school environment they had no control over. The next day, they started to investigate in homeschooling (Caruana 46). According to the sociologist Mitchell Stevens school is “the most central institution of modern life” (15). This means that daily activities or vacations are adjusted and organized around school. Despite this, we can observe a new trend: Parents teach their children at home instead of sending them to a public or a private school. More and more children get educated at home by their parents or, in some cases, by private teachers. Homeschooling exists in many parts of the world, especially in English speaking countries, but this paper focuses on the homeschooling movement in the United States because a majority of homeschooling families can be found there. Homeschoolers are only connected by their interest in homeschooling their children and not by religion, ethnicity or class. Therefore, the typical homeschooling family does not exist. At first glance, people think that most homeschoolers are fundamentalist Christians but in fact there is a plurality of people who educate their children at home and that is why it can be hard to understand the trend.

Home schooling is an important and growing American phenomenon with only our first edition in the field. This new 2nd edition will appeal to the home school world, people interested in American education, and the private school community. Changes in the educational environment in the US over the last ten years have prompted growing numbers of parents to withdraw their children from public education. Currently, four percent of school-age children in the United States are home schooled. An array of educational researchers present various legal, philosophical, and personal perspectives to this new volume. Changes in schooling and home schooling in Great Britain bring an interesting international perspective to this collection of research-based information.

In 2021, the United States Census Bureau reported that in 2020, during the rise of the global health pandemic COVID-19, homeschooling among Black families increased five-fold. However, Black families had begun choosing to homeschool even before COVID-19 led to school closures and disrupted traditional school spaces. Homeschooling Black Children in the US: Theory, Practice and Popular Culture offers an insightful look at the growing practice of homeschooling by Black families through this timely collection of articles by education practitioners, researchers, homeschooling parents and homeschooled children. Homeschooling Black Children in the US: Theory, Practice and Popular Culture honestly presents how systemic racism and other factors influence the decision of Black families to homeschool. In addition, the book chapters illustrate in different ways how self-determination manifests within the homeschooling practice. Researchers Khadijah Ali-Coleman and Cheryl Fields-Smith have edited a compilation of work that explores the varied experiences of parents homeschooling Black children before, during and after COVID-19. From veteran homeschooling parents sharing their practice to researchers reporting their data collected pre-COVID, this anthology of work presents an overview that gives substantive insight into what the practice of homeschooling looks like for many Black families in the United States.

Homeschool leader Christopher Klicka documents the modern history of the homeschool resurgence in America, profiling the legal issues as well as the tireless champions of this education movement.