The Search for School Safety and the African American Homeschooling Experience

Abstract

Interest in homeschooling has increased over the last decade, as what was once perceived as a marginal development has turned into a significant phenomenon. There has been, in recent years, a noticeable surge in African American involvement in the homeschooling movement as well. However, there continues to be a general paucity of research on the motivations of homeschooling Black parents. It is the purpose of this essay (1) to present empirical evidence regarding African American motivations for homeschooling; and (2) more specifically, to explore how parental concerns for safety are leading African American families to homeschooling. These concerns, the authors contend, bring to the fore a series of disturbing circumstances and preoccupations that are specific to African Americans.

The Unhomely of Homeschooling

“…Types of homeschoolers include parents making ideological choices from both left/liberal/progressive and right-wing/conservative poles (Stevens, 2001); Christian Evangelical families in the USA who are also often conservatives (Apple, 2000); parents with children with disabilities or special educational needs who feel public schools are under-resourced and not meeting their needs (Maxwell et al, 2018); families who experience bullying, racism or marginalisation within schools (Bhopal and Myers, 2018; Musumunu and Mazama 2015), this includes groups with specific or exceptional experiences such as Gypsies and Travellers 1 who experience racism and marginalisation within schools and have also historically chosen to homeschool in order to pass on social, cultural and economic skills and traditions (D’Arcy, 2014); parents who believe their children are gifted and talented (Jolly and Matthews, 2018); and, more recently, in the UK, families have become homeschoolers as a consequence of schools off-rolling pupils they consider problematic (Children’s Commissioner, 2019). This list is not exhaustive but indicates the major schism between homeschooling chosen for ethical or ideological reasons and homeschooling as a consequence of the breakdown of relations between families and schools.…”

“…The National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), a homeschooling research advocacy group, suggests around 2.5 million children are currently homeschooled in the USA (Ray, 2020). Black, Latino and Muslim families are increasingly turning to homeschooling (McKeon, 2007; Musumunu and Mazama, 2015). In the UK the DfE (2019) estimated there are 57,600 homeschooled children but noted this figure was potentially growing by as much as 20% per annum.…”

“…Homeschooling is often identified as a problematic form of education because it ‘ goes against the grain ’ (Myers, 2020: 211, emphasis in original) of mainstream, global trends towards compulsory mass schooling (European Commission, 2018; Meyer et al, 1992; UNESCO, 2021). This problematic status has been theorised in relation to pedagogic practice including the structuring of schooldays and educational outcomes (Martin-Chang et al, 2011; Neuman and Guterman, 2016); and sociological perspectives situating homeschooling within broader patterns of inequality, understandings of risk and socio-economic trends including educational privatisation and neoliberalism (Apple, 2000; Bhopal and Myers, 2018; Musumunu and Mazama, 2015). This article draws upon my research since 2008 (Bhopal and Myers, 2008, 2009, 2016, 2018; Myers, 2015, 2020; Myers and Bhopal, 2018) with a range of different homeschooling families in the UK and the USA including elective homeschoolers, children excluded from schools, affluent and less affluent families, families from different ethnic backgrounds, religious and non-religious families, families with children who have disabilities and children identified as gifted and talented.…”