'Doing school' and 'having fun': Tensions between family and school conceptions of education.

摘要

Homeschooling is increasingly becoming an exercised option by parents for a variety of academic, religious, political, and social reasons. Currently, 2% of US school children are schooled at home. This project focuses on families who have chosen a city or county-sponsored homeschool program and compares them to parents who have chosen a traditional school. This comparison allows an exploration of how school structures and practices impact family-school relations. There are both external and internal pressures that ensure that homeschool families conform to traditional ideas of education. However, through defining activities, cracks in this reproduction appear. In defining practices as "doing school" or as "having fun," families and homeschool programs delineate who is responsible and what expectations are placed on the activity. In arenas defined as "doing school," the program has more control, whereas in arenas defined as "having fun," families assume more responsibility. In homeschool programs, cross-generational and cross-peer interaction facilitates authentic learning practices, which departs from traditional conceptions of education. However, parents can maintain traditional ideas because the project-based learning is defined as "having fun" and is not understood to be as serious as "doing school" which is done at home and involves book work and evaluation. Parents point to outcomes of higher self esteem and a personalized learning experience for their homeschooled students. The project uses interviews and participant observation to understand how meaning is created and how it informs practice. Examining how parents construct the meaning of education gives us further understanding of the place of education in families' lives, the meaning people assign to education, and the practices that accompany this meaning-making activity. Understanding how people create meaning within social institutions can also be a stepping stone to understanding how practices and meanings change, and how schools can address the changing social demands of what education means.