An Evaluation of the Historical Development and Recent State of Homeschooling in the USA

Abstract

At the end of 1960s, a time when the requirement to attend formal education institutions for a more promising future was commonly acknowledged, homeschooling emerged as a practice in which parents themselves undertook responsibility for educating their children instead of directing them to professionals. Having emerged as a social movement in the educational field, homeschooling is an alternative choice of education that is practiced legally in many countries besides the USA. One of the basic conclusions of this study, in which an overview of the emergence of homeschooling in the USA and its current situation have been taken, is that homeschooling, after emerging as a reaction against institutional education, has lost its marginality; and that in parallel to its legitimization, it has been transformed into a segment of institutional education today.