At home in school: A qualitative inquiry into three Christian home schools

Home schooling underwent phenomenal growth throughout the eighties and nineties. However, few studies are based upon direct observation of these schools. For this research, I observed for over 100 hours in three Christian home schools. My work is an educational criticism that describes, interprets, appraises, and thematizes the intentions and daily practices of these Christian home schools.;What I observed in these home schools, framed more or less rigidly by the traditional school paradigm, supported existing research findings that indicate that traditional, measurable academic success is in fact achieved in them; they meet or exceed expectations for student performance. However, while facilitating "school success," the traditional school paradigm also constrains what could be a richer learning environment and compromises some goals of the home schooling families I visited. For example, families using measures common to institutional schooling judge their success in ways often irrelevant to their core values. In fact, not only are the measures of achievement largely irrelevant to their core values, so are many of the curricular tasks they employ. In addition, family life is often arranged around the demands of "schooling" children thus limiting opportunities for children to be involved in the everyday lives of their parents.;The title I gave each home school is indicative of the particular relationship between that school and family life. In The School Built at Home, the family strives to build at home a school based on the Christian private school curriculum. In Oatmeal for Supper, the demands of the purchased Christian curriculum reshapes some family life, such as supper preparation. In Not Running a Little School at Home, it is family life that drives schooling activities, not a formal purchased curriculum.;Regardless of the extent to which they modeled institutional school, each home school I visited facilitated a family closeness unmitigated by extended peer pressures, or time absorbed with the demands of institutional school. Furthermore, outside of "school time" each family makes provision for many of the richer educational experiences which are more difficult to provide in traditional institutional settings.