In recent decades, homeschooling in the United States has grown, as parents with varying stances in terms of politics and religiosity—and particularly, with distinct perspectives on childhood gender and sexuality—come to the same practice of homeschooling their children. How can we understand the rising popularity of homeschooling, and what does this trend indicate about broader cultural beliefs about childhood, parenting, and education? The Homeschool Choice examines contemporary debates about childhood and education from the perspective of parents who have chosen—for a variety of reasons—to ... More

In recent decades, homeschooling in the United States has grown, as parents with varying stances in terms of politics and religiosity—and particularly, with distinct perspectives on childhood gender and sexuality—come to the same practice of homeschooling their children. How can we understand the rising popularity of homeschooling, and what does this trend indicate about broader cultural beliefs about childhood, parenting, and education? The Homeschool Choice examines contemporary debates about childhood and education from the perspective of parents who have chosen—for a variety of reasons—to opt out of the public school system and homeschool their children. Drawing on mixed-methods research that includes survey data, participant observation at homeschooling events, and in-depth interviews with parents, it examines the ideologies (some contested, some shared) of childhood, motherhood, education, and the state that parents reference when they talk about homeschooling, offering a glimpse into how parents feel both empowered and constrained by recent changes in education policy motivated by the ethos of school choice. The book demonstrates that the ideology of school choice operates in the daily lives of American families in ways that reinscribe gender, sexual, race, class, and age inequalities. It illuminates the changing relationships among the family, the state, and public schools under a neoliberal policy model, highlighting how trust in, and reliance upon, public services are changing, and what this means for the changing burdens families face as the state divests from public education.