AFRICAN AMERICAN HOMESCHOOLING PRACTICES: Empirical Evidence

Record: Ama Mazama, “African American Homeschooling Practices: Empirical Evidence.” Theory and Research in Education, 14, No. 1 (2016): 26-44. [Abstract]

Summary: Mazama, one of the leading researchers on African American homeschooling, is Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Programs of the Department of African American Studies at Temple University. In this article, she seeks to investigate the daily instructional practices of African American homeschoolers.

Read Full Post »

AFRICAN AMERICAN HOMESCHOOLERS: Religion and Race as Motivators

Record: Ama Mazama and Garvey Lundy, “African American Homeschoolers: The Force of Faith and the Reality of Race in the Homeschooling Experience” in Religion and Education (forthcoming).  [First page here]

Summary: In previous articles Mazama (of Temple University) and Lundy (of Montgomery County Community College) have drawn on what is to date the largest and most geographically diverse sample of African American homeschoolers ever collected to probe parental motivation.  In a 2012 article they first articulated what has become a standard theme of their work, the idea that African American homeschoolers are motivated largely by what they call “racial protectionism,” a desire to protect their children from the racism they often face in conventional schools.  In a 2013 piece they refined their concept, calling it “educational protectionism,” and giving it both a curricular and a pedagogical dimension.

In this article they draw on this same data to add yet another dimension to their account of parental motivation.  Here they focus particularly on religion. 

Read Full Post »

A Book that Explains the Culture Wars

This post reviews David Sehat, The Myth of American Religious Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).  Sehat is Assistant Professor of History at Georgia State University.

Let me start off by saying that I absolutely loved this book.  It’s my favorite kind of history.  Sehat takes one idea and traces its history from the American founding to the present, giving his readers a deep understanding of the concept even as we are disabused of some common misperceptions along the way.  The concept here is American religious freedom.  The misperceptions are these.  Liberals often speak as if from our founding the United States has been a secular nation and that Christian efforts to impose Christian morality on everyone else are out of step with this history.  Conservatives often speak as if the United States has always been a Christian nation, and that Christianity is in fact the basis of the religious freedom we all hold so dear.  Both are wrong.

Read Full Post »