Homeschool Research

There is a lot of research on homeschool and its impact on families and society. Understandably, almost all the studies that are available come from the West. I shall add more links as and when I come across them.  Note that there’s the occasional research/reference that isn’t about homeschool at all (eg, The Importance of Play); but they’re on the list because of their relevance. You may wish to update me on broken links or inform me of research sites you think are helpful by emailing to this address. Also note that views and research cited do not necessarily reflect my personal position and convictions.

• Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) 2009 Progress Report The US homeschool advocates’ newest nationwide survey confirms homeschool academic achievements. Go to the link to download the 8-page pdf report.

• Research on Homeschooling Socialization From LearnInFreedom.org. A summary of research and published reports that suggest that homeschoolers do not lack socialization skills nor suffer from self-esteem issues when compared with students from conventional schools.

• The Importance of Play in Child Development Play is serious business and this piece by the American Academy of Pediatrics tells us what the benefits are and how play promotes parent-child bonding.

• Foundations of the Rights and Responsibilities of Homeschooling Parents (Download) This essay, by Larry and Susan Kaseman, was originally published in their Taking Charge political action column in the May-June 1996 issue of Home Education Magazine. Although it was written in the context of US rights and civil liberties,  a few sections notably Practical Foundations, Logical Foundations, and Moral Foundations, offer a strong defense of homeschool in general.

• National Home Education Research Institute NHERI was founded by its president Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., who has been the editor of the refereed academic journal Home School Researcher since 1985.

• HOMESCHOOLING GROWS UP (Summary of research in downloadable pdf) How do homeschooled students turn out? Can a homeschool graduate get into college or get a job? How do they fit into society? Are they good citizens? Are they happy? In 2003, HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association) commissioned Dr. Brian D. Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, to conduct a study to answer these questions. The results of his research demonstrate that homeschoolers are succeeding.

• Homeschooling:From the Extreme to the Mainstream A Frazier Institute, Canada report (2nd Edition, 2007) on the growth and appeal of homeschool in Canada and the US. According to one of its findings, “(H)ome education may help eliminate the potential negative effects of certain socio-economic factors. Though children whose parents have university degrees score higher on tests of academic achievement than other home schooled children, home education appears to mitigate the harmful effect of low parental education levels.”

• Jon’s Homeschool Resources: The world is a classroom Quite a comprehensive list categorised according to research findings.

• Bibliography of Scholarly Research on Homeschooling (Note:contains opposing viewpoints as well)

• Learning Styles Individuals learn in different ways and experts have different terminologies and different ways of categorizing these learning styles. The most well-known theory on learning styles came from Howard Gardner’s work on Multiple Intelligences. There’s plenty on this site to explain as well as to test your own learning style.

• Homeschooling Research & Scholarship Professor Robert Kunzman of Indiana University has put together seven years of study on homeschooling on this excellent reference site.  You’ll find listings reflecting a less partisan scholarship on the growing homeschool phenomenon covering a wide range of topics such as academic achievements, pedagogy, race/ethnicity, religion, socialization, and cultural analysis. He cites nearly 1,500 research references according to author and topic which are unfortunately not linked online.

• Wikipedia A pretty thorough entry in the popular open source online encyclopedia. Unfortunately in the section regarding international status of homeschool, Indonesia is in (Pendidikan Rumah) but there’s no mention of Malaysia.

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