HOMESCHOOLING BASED ON TECHNOLOGY IN MALAYSIA

Record: Norlidah Alias, Mohd. Nazri Abdul Rahman, Siraj Saedah, and Ruslina Ibrahim, “A Model of Homeschooling Based on Technology in Malaysia” in The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology 1, no. 3 (July 2013): 10-16 [Available Here]

Summary:  The authors begin with a helpful overview of recent developments in Malaysian education policy.  In 2003 the Free and Compulsory Education Act was passed, which compels children age 6 and over to attend a school but allows parental choice for private or home-based learning.

Since that time a small but growing “homeschooling” trend has been documented, and research is being conducted on the families choosing this option. 

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THE TRANSMISSION OF VALUES: Do Homeschooled Christian Kids Keep the Faith as Adults?

Record: Braden Ryan Hoelzle, “The Transmission of Values and the Transition into Adulthood Within the Context of Home Education” in Journal of Research on Christian Education 22, no. 3 (2013), pp. 244-263.

Summary:  Hoelzle, a doctoral student in education at Southern Methodist University, here presents the results of a qualitative study of four young adults, all of whom had been homeschooled for eight or more years.  His goal was to assess the success of the strategy of using homeschooling to pass on parental religious and moral values.

Hoelzle reveals at the outset that he himself is an evangelical Christian who is hoping to use homeschooling as a way to transmit his values to his own children.  But so far the scholarship on this question is very thin.  He mentions Brian Ray’s oft-cited but methodologically weak 2004 survey of young adults who had been homeschooled, finding its generalizations too generic.  He wants to know in a deeper, richer way just what homeschooled children think about the religious convictions of their parents once they leave.

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“YOU CAN’T RELY ON SOMEBODY ELSE”: How Homeschooling Dads Think

Record: Lee Garth Vigilant, Lauren Wold Trefethren, and Tyler C. Anderson, “‘You Can’t Rely on Somebody Else to Teach Them Something they Don’t Believe’: Impressions of Legimitation Crisis and Socialization Control in the Narratives of Christian Homeschooling Fathers” in Humanity and Society 37, no. 3 (2013): 201-224. [Abstract Here]

Summary: Vigilant, a father of homeschooled children who is also a sociology professor at Minnesota State University Morehead, here joins with two non-homeschooling colleagues to present one of the first studies ever of homeschooling fathers.  Vigilant and his wife, who are African American, turned to homeschooling upon moving to Minnesota, which in his words ranks “among the worst states in the nation for the achievement gap between black and white students in mathematics and reading.” (p. 202)  Noting that the sociological literature on parental motivation focused nearly exclusively on mothers, Vigilant wanted to learn what fathers were doing and thinking about homeschooling.

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