A Moral Case for Regulating Homeschooling: Children’s Right to Escape Their Parents

• In Event: Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Autonomy, Religion, and Exit Rights in Philosophy of Education

Abstract

Schools function as children’s primary venue for interfacing with adults and peers beyond the direct control of the family. Homeschooled children (now numbering around 1.5 million in the U.S.) may lack comparable social opportunities. Some children will struggle to develop into autonomous adults if they seldom encounter values and behaviors beyond the family. Those homeschooled children who are unhappy at home also lack the opportunity to use school as a temporary escape. Those who argue for increased regulation of homeschooling tend to focus on curricular issues. I argue that such “standard” forms of regulation are not enough. State regulations should also aim to ensure that homeschooled children have substantive access to adults and peers outside of the family context.

Author

• Ingrid Steinberg, University of California - Los Angeles