Are We Ready for School “Abolition”? Fugitive Places of Self-Direction in Contemporary Black Homeschooling

• In Event: Place and Praxis in the Radical Imaginary of Self-Directed Education

Abstract

Purpose
Persistent racial achievement gaps, disproportionate discipline, and curricular assaults, including attacks on teaching Black history, illustrate how schools fail Black students. This failure, combined with Covid school closures, vaccine mandates and safety concerns (Anderson, 2022), led to a fivefold increase in the number of Black homeschooling families in 2020 (Eggleston & Fields, 2021). In this study, we explore how the organizers of Black homeschooling groups approach the place and praxis of Black homeschooling as radical imaginary. Drawing on frameworks of school abolition (Stovall, 2018) and fugitive pedagogy (Givens, 2021), Black homeschooling families create places that reject mis-educational carceral practices of order, compliance and dehumanization and support their children’s autonomy, self-direction and belonging.
Theoretical Perspectives
Research on Black homeschooling has centered on families’ motivations to homeschool, parental experiences, and homeschooling practices. Black families, as an exercise in agency to create safer spaces (Mazama & Musumunu, 2015), leave conventional schooling due to discipline disproportionality, lack of cultural relevance, teachers’ low expectations, school safety and climate, and their marginalization as educational partners (Fields-Smith, 2020; 2022). Following examples set by Woodson (2023) and generations of fugitive and abolitionist Black educators (Givens, 2021), some Black homeschoolers explicitly reject the oppression found in conventional schooling and instead incorporate liberating practices such as mindful relationships and collaborative and self-directed learning at home and in community (Richards, 2020).
Methods
Our study employed Critical Constructed Grounded Theory (Levitt, 2021). We developed an eight item open- and closed-ended survey for organizers of Black homeschooling groups identified through Google searches. Survey results provided information about each group’s background, purpose, and views on homeschooling as an avenue to self-determination and liberation. Next, we conducted focus groups to expand on survey findings, including how organizers draw on ideas of self-determination, joy, and love. We used thematic analysis to investigate survey and focus group data to identify patterns of meaning (Clarke, Braun & Hayfield, 2015).
Data Sources
Data sources included survey responses and transcripts of focus group interviews with 10 Black homeschool group organizers from diverse regions of the U.S. All participants had school-aged children that they were currently educating at home.
Findings
Preliminary data from websites and social media suggest that organizers were able to create places that foster a sense of community and belonging for their members by prioritizing communal learning and Black-centric learning. Children were able to pursue meaningful relationships and make friends. Further, organizers described spaces of agency and joy for Black families using words like empowerment and fun. Parents shared resources, developed confidence and felt freed to support their children’s learning styles. Finally, Black children felt happy and unencumbered because they were able to be more self-directed in their educational pursuits in comparison to conventional schooling.
Significance
Black homeschooling is a contemporary practice of fugitive pedagogy. In alignment with calls for school abolition (Stovall, 2018), organizers of Black homeschooling groups provide evidence that a radical imaginary not found in conventional schooling can exist and flourish, demonstrating what “educational spaces free of racial injustice can look like” (Howard et al., 2023).

Authors

• Joby Gardner, DePaul University

• Ariel Sylvester, DePaul University

• Thomas Noel, Morgan State University