Motherwork as Community-work: How Black Homeschooling Mothers Labor Together

• In Event: More Than a Bandaid: How Black Mothers Remedy and Repair in Homeschool Communities

Abstract

The rise of Black homeschoolers in the U.S. and Globally, has led to the expansion of homeschooling communities; specifically, all, predominantly or pro-Black homeschooling communities. Indeed, community is a critical lens through which to understand the choice to homeschool and the practices of homeschoolers. This presentation will examine the role that homeschooling communities play for Black homeschoolers, with a focus on Black mothers and women who form and maintain these communities. Specifically, the role of community in buffering against the racialized educational terrain (Diamond 2006) and supporting mothers in realizing their educational goals for their children.
The racialized educational terrain (RET) is a framework introduced by John Diamond (2006) that explains the persistent racial and social inequality of conventional schools. The racialized educational terrain can be connected to homeschooling through the motivations Black parents cite for selecting the educational alternative. Namely, parents identify experiences of racism, cultural exclusion of African American and Black history and culture, demonstrative teacher bias against Black students, low expectations of Black students, criminalization of Black boys, Eurocentric curriculum, and overall poor-quality education as motivations for homeschooling (Tyson 2003, 2007; Fields-Smith and Kisura 2013; Mazama and Lundy 2013, 2014, 2015; Ray 2015; Lewis and Diamond 2015). While the racialized failures of public schooling often shape the motivations for shifting to homeschooling, homeschooling has functioned as a site for resistance to oppressive cultural ideals about Black people. As the racialized educational terrain argues that structural, institutional, and symbolic factors uphold inequality, these same factors are explored in the context of Black families that homeschool in a community to understand what community characteristics are essential for escaping or extending the RET.
Homeschooling has been cited as an inequality-expanding and reproducing process by some scholars and critics (Mazama & Lundy, 2012; Murphy, 2014, 2015). However, Puga (2019) argues that for Black families, homeschooling is a response to social inequalities, not a contributor (288). Using Puga’s framing, it seems that homeschooling would operate as a solution to the racialized educational terrain that disadvantages Black students. And yet, a mother’s likelihood to escape or extend the RET may be structured by systemic gendered racism that mitigates their choices, as Taylor (2018) found. Through an intersectional lens, this paper examines the racialized, gender and classed experiences of Black homeschooling mothers as they engage in motherwork (Cooper 2007; Fields-Smith 2020) in community and the intragroup differences within their community.
This work has implications beyond Black homeschooling. Indeed, scholars, policymakers and educators have long sought to understand and close the achievement gap between Black and white students. Homeschooling, specifically, Black homeschooling offers an opportunity to finally answer not just why inequality persists, but how and by what it means it can be repaired. By examining homeschooling communities as schooling communities, we come to realize the essential characteristics of schools that allow for successful and thriving Black students; characteristics that are often missing from conventional schools. The answer to the pressing questions of inequality may be found in the labor of Black mothers in community.

Author

• Moriah L. Johnson, Loyola University Chicago