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Allie Adamski

Professor Guenzel

ENC 1102

March 31, 2020

“The Social and Educational Effects of Homeschooling”

Education is one of the most valuable things all across the world. Which is why I want to

become and Elementary Education teacher. But for some people access to that resource is much

more common, especially those in the United States. The U.S. offers many different varieties of

education, one of which is homeschooling. The study of homeschooling provides important

insights on the conservative mosaic that has been formed in the United States over the last 30

years (Murphy, 244-272). It is a new way to see the difference in perspectives and values in

different families.

The concept of homeschooling, although now more common, was not always understood,

and in a lot of cases undervalued. The politics behind homeschooling and the monetary value it

has, or doesn't have, compared to some public or private schools, is something that has been, and

will continued to be argued about. Although that aspect is important, in my mind the Social and

Educational effects that homeschooling has on some children is much much more important.

It is hard to measure and put a value on someones social skills and abilities. To some the

concept is just not as important as it may be to others, and that is completely understandable.

Social skills are the skills we use to communicate and interact with each other, both verbally and

non-verbally, through gestures, body language and our personal appearance (SkillsYouNeed).

The difficult part about the idea of social skills is that in different setting different skills are

required, so too some people curtain gestures and appearances are seemingly unnecessary. With
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homeschooling we will go into the arguments that it hinders children social development, and

that it provides the same level of social development as public schools.

In regards to the educational value of homeschooling over public schools there aren’t a

multitude of different opinions and thoughts, but there are also a lot of statistics. Education as a

definition is very loose because the concept as a whole is very broad and general. Personally the

definition I found on Quora really defines education well, it is “the process of facilitating

learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits.” The reason I admire

this definition is because it does not put borders around education and where it is taught, and

who teaches it. It simply allows for education to be what it is, without closing it off from other

aspects of the world.

I do believe it is important to hear both sides to to this argument and that is what I found

throughout my research. In this essay you will see both sides of the argument and the data that

goes with it. It is important to understand that this topic is subjective to certain situations that

people may be in and the ways that they choose to live their lives.

As a college student coming from 12+ years of public school education I have always

been fascinated with the differences between public school and homeschool. From my own

personal experiences I know what I have learned and gained through out my experiences in

different sports, and clubs at my school, but I do not know enough information from the other

side of things. The only information I know about homeschooling comes from one of my friends

I met senior year. He transferred into the public school system after being homeschooled for a

couple years. In the life style he lived homeschooling provided him with more opportunities to

pursue his interest in music.

Although he is the only person that I knew who was homeschooled I know that I can not

just base my knowledge and understanding of the topic off of that one persons experience. It is

important to take in all of the different aspects, or as many as you can, because there are too

many different factors that contribute to making a judgment about an argument or topic.

As a person you are shaped by the many different experiences you go through in your

life. Whether that be a personal situation, or a situation involving others. Many times we learn

from the many social interactions we have throughout our day to day lives. A lot of times those

first interactions come from moments at a school or on a play ground. Over the years you

continue to grow and learn through those experiences, but what if you took that outlet away?

That is one of the questions I had pertaining to homeschooling. I understood that in

homeschooling you are not in complete I solution and that you still get interaction with others,

but I felt as though it might be limited. That is why I looked through many different pieces of

research to find data that would help me better understand if my theory was in fact correct, or the

complete opposite.

This topic of homeschoolings effect on social skills has become a larger debate over the

years, as the number of homeschooled children in the United States reaches over a million. Many

people have many different opinions and feeling towards this. Some believe that homeschooling

is not taking social opportunities away from kids, instead it is providing different social

opportunities in other ways. Although kids are homeschooled they still have to ability to compete

include sports, and participate in neighborhood and community activities and events (Jones 14).

While others view homeschooling as sheltering a child and having them grow up to be “‘unfree’”

and “‘civically disabled’” (Jones 14). All of this information is subjective and the data is

supportive of which ever side these people are already on. In the research that Jones found
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students who had more social connectedness, had a higher resiliency rate. The research also

found that kids who had more social connectedness also tended to have high self-esteem.

Although the social aspects of homeschooling are very important, so are the educational aspects.

Kids go to school to learn and gain the knowledge that they need to continue growing in the

world. Learning how to count and read is very important, but so is learning about culture and life

skills. Many argue that homeschooling provides the resources to learn about all of those things,

more in-depth than some might in a public school setting. Other say that in a public school you

are learning from people who specifically studied their subject and have the best knowledge on

the topic. But which provides the best real life, hands on experience, that is most beneficial for

kids?

When it comes to academic kids learn and retain information better in different ways.

This is why some people argue that homeschooling is better, because the lessons are taught

specifically in the best way for the child to retain the information. This shows through the

difference in ACT scores amongst homeschooled children and public school children. Those

who were homeschooled outlasted those in public school (Barwegen). In a study of 5,400

homeschooled students it was calculated that their scores are standardized test were consistently

higher than the average of 20.8 (Barwegen). Although 5,400 does not seem like a very large

number, for all of them to have test scores above the average shows that in terms of standardized

tests, being homeschooled has a larger benefit.

From the data shown and stated there is a difference between being homeschooled and attending

public schools. But in opposition to the stigma around it, Homeschooling can have its advantages

in both social and educational fields. As I stated before, this is all circumstantial, every

individual case is different, but statistically speaking homeschooling can be more beneficial. As
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unfortunate as it may be there may always be a stigma around the argument of homeschool

versus public school but the data that I found can be helpful in making things clearer to

understand.

Hopefully in the future there will be more studies done to build off of this and the other

research papers done on this topic. No one is ever done learning and no topic is ever done being

studied. Education plays a very large role in everyones life in one way or another knowing what

works best for people is important. Everyones own experience leads to different outcomes, and

there is no solid conclusion that one can draw from others experiences.
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Works Cited
Jones, Nicole. “The Effects of Social-Connectedness and Self-Esteem on the
Resiliency of Homeschool Students.” 2018.

Ricardo, Ashleigh. Homeschooling: A Restriction on Socialization for Children.

Wilson, C. (2010). An examination of assessment scores between students who

Barwegen, L. M., Falciani, N. K., Putnam, S. J., Reamer, M. B., & Stair, E. E.
(2004). Academic achievement of homeschool and public school students and
student perception of parent involvement. School Community Journal, 14(1), 39-
58. Retrieved from
https://search.proquest.com/docview/195462414?accountid=10003