WHAT ABOUT SOCIALIZATION?
(from the HEIR Big Book ©H.E.I.R. 1997)
"Does the research show any clear-cut advantages or disadvantages to home schooling, in relation to the social and emotional development of children schooled at home? Does the home-schooled youngster do as well in measures of interpersonal skills and communication skills as the conventionally schooled child? ......
Stough (1992),looking particularly at socialization, compared 30 home-schooling families and 32 conventionally schooling families, families with children 7-14 years of age. According to the findings, children who were schooled at home "gained the necessary skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed to function in society...at a rate similar to that of conventionally schooled children." The researcher found no difference in the self concept of children in the two groups. Stough maintains that "insofar as self concept is a reflector of socialization, it would appear that few home-schooled children are socially deprived, and that there may be sufficient evidence to indicate that some home-schooled children have a higher self concept than conventionally schooled children."
This echoes the findings of Taylor (1987). Using one of the best validated self-concept scales available, Taylor's random sampling of home-schooled children (45,000) found that half of these children scored at or above the 91st percentile--47% higher than the average, conventionally schooled child. He concludes: "Since self concept is considered to be a basic dynamic of positive sociability, this answers the often heard skepticism suggesting that home schoolers are inferior in socialization" (Taylor, 1987)."
ERIC Digest, ED372460 94 Home Schooling and Socialization of Children
The Educational Resources Information Center publication prepared with funding from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement,
U.S. Department of Education
"Research studies funded by Cornell University found that children who spend more elective time with their peers than with their parents become peer-dependent, thereby diminishing in their self-worth, optimism, respect for parents and trust in peers, all of which are crucial to sound mental health and positive socialization."
Bronfenbrenner, Urie, The Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R.,
(Simon & Schuster - New York, 1970) pp.97 - 101
Moore, Raymond, et, al., "When Education Becomes Abuse: A Different Look at the Mental Health of Children", "Journal of School Health", February, 1986
"Ronald Areglado, the associate executive director of programs with the National Association of Elementary School Principals, ... "There’s too much emphasis on test scores as the evidence that home schooling is successful," he says. "My worry is that these children become isolated and fragmented; their world is cut up into pieces; there’s no interaction with school kids; they may not play as much....."
The New York Times Magazine, February 2, 1997,
"Mommy, What’s a Classroom?" by Bill Roorbach
"Children engaged in home schooling spend less time with same-aged children and more time with people of different ages. Most spend time with other children through support and networking groups, scouting, churches, and other associations. Many spend time with adults other than their parents through community volunteer work, running their own businesses, tutoring or mentoring arrangements, or other activities.
There is no conclusive research suggesting that additional time with same-aged peers is preferable to more time with individuals of varying ages. Limited testing of a self-selected group of home-schooled children suggested above-average social and psychological development."
ED381849 Apr 95 Home Schooling. ERIC Digest, Number 95
"The loss to boys is of particular concern academically, behaviorally, and socially. Despite their widely-acknowledged delay in maturity, we demand their enrollment in school at the same ages as girls. In recent years, many reports suggest that boys are several times as likely as girls to fail, become delinquent, or acutely hyperactive. Perhaps most ominous are recent (Education Week, March 14, 1984, p. 19) findings in American high schools that there are eight boys for each girl in classes for the emotionally impaired, and 13 boys for each girl in remedial learning groups."
"When Education Becomes Abuse: A Different Look at the Mental Health of Children", Commentary by Raymond and Dorothy Moore,
The Moore Foundation, Camas, WA
"School have always treated girls and boys differently. What is new in the nineties is that we have much more documentation of this phenomenon. Public awareness of the discrimination is increasing. This is due in part to the American Association of University Women (AAUW), which released a study in 1992 entitled ‘How Schools Shortchange Girls.’
In classes, boys are twice as likely to be seen as role models, 5 times as likely to receive teachers’ attention and 12 times as likely to speak up in class. ....
Analysis of classroom videos shows that boys receive more classroom attention and detailed instruction than girls. They are called on more often than girls and are asked more abstract, open-ended and complex questions. Boys are more likely to be praised for academics and intellectual work, while girls are more likely to be praised for their clothing, behaving properly, and obeying rules. Boys are likely to be criticized for their behavior, while girls are criticized for intellectual inadequacy. ...
The AAUW study found that as children go through school, boys do better and feel better about themselves and girls’ self-esteem, opinions of their sex and scores on standardized achievement tests all decline. Girls are more likely than boys to say they are not smart enough for their dream careers."
Mary Pipher
Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Adolescent Girls,
Ballentine Books, New York, pp.62-63
"There is socialization among home-schoolers; it’s just not regimented by age group the way it is in schools, which is unnatural. And it is not selfish to give kids the best education you can. What’s good for kids is good for society."
David Wagner, director of legal policy for the Family Research Council
Atlanta Journal, October 23, 1994, p.D1,
"Home schools gaining a new image"
"... the Condry-Siman-Bronfenbrenner Cornell University peer studies and the outcomes which Urie Brofenbrenner calls ‘social contagion’: Children who are less with their parents than their peers, become peer dependent. This in turn brings loss of self worth, optimism, respect for parents and even trust in peers. They become age-segregated, comfortable only with their age mates, developing essentially a negative, me-first kind of sociabilty. For many children such narcissism means depression, delinquency or violence."
"...In a national sampling of parent-educated children, J.W. Taylor found that (1) 77.7% of these home-schooled children rank in the top quartile on the Preis-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale, with more than half of all home schoolers placing in the top 10 percent, (2) the longer they are taught at home, the higher their self-concept, and (3) self-concept is unrelated to the parents’ educational levels."
"...the findings of the ‘Eight Year Study’ sponsored by the Progressive Education Association in the 1930’s in which children were paired by age, sex, socioeconomic status, vocational interest, motivation and job performance, in school ranging from slums to wealthiest areas. The less formal teaching, the higher the experimental children scored on every variable, including high school and college grades, academic honors, leadership, attitude and success on the job. Those without any formal teaching performed highest of all."
"What Educators Should Know about Home Schools"
by Raymond S. Moore, Ed.D.
"Perhaps the most telling study to date found that the self-concept of home-schooled children was significantly higher than conventionally schooled children as measured on the Piers-Harris Children’s Self Concept Scale. Half of the home-schooled children scored in the upper ten percent on the scale. The researchers attributed these findings to the one-on-one tutoring environment in the home and to higher levels of parental interest and peer independence."
Taylor, John Wesley, "Self-Concept in Home-Schooling Children",
Home School Researcher Vol. 2, No. 2 (Corvalis, OR, June ,1986).
"Webb (1989), one of the few researchers who has examined aspects of the adult lives of wholly or partly home-educated people, found that all who had attempted higher education were successful and that their socialization was often better than that of their schooled peers."
ERIC Digest, ED372460 94 Home Schooling and Socialization of Children
