Home-schooling as an extreme form of parental involvement

Abstract

Although home schooling is growing in popularity in the U.S. (Princiotta, Bielick, & Chapman, 2004), little systematic research has focused on this population. Using Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s (1995, 1997) model of parental involvement process and the few available studies of home-schooling parents’ beliefs (e.g. Knowles, 1988; Van Galen, 1988), I examined why parents decide to home-school. Parents of 136 home-schooled elementary children completed questionnaires assessing constructs a) derived from Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s model, including psychological motivation for home-schooling (role construction and sense of efficacy for helping the child learn) and life context variables pertinent to home-schooling (time and energy, skills and knowledge) and b) personal beliefs identified in the home-schooling research as important to parents’ decision to home-school (value beliefs, ideological beliefs, pedagogical beliefs, and beliefs about the child’s special needs). The results offer systematic and theoretically grounded information on parents’ motivations for home schooling.