Childhood Gender and Sexuality in Homeschooling Families

• In Event: 569 - Section on Children and Youth Paper Session. Children, Youth and Sexualities

Abstract

Homeschooling in the United States has typically been portrayed as the province of fundamentalist Christians, who opt out of public schooling in order to protect their children from the influence of a secular, sexually permissive culture. Recently, however, homeschooling has also found its way into the discourse of those who argue the opposite: that American public schools, influenced by conservative Christian morality, are intolerant of, and inhospitable to, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming youth. Why is homeschooling a proposed “solution” to two seemingly opposing problems? In this paper, I seek to explain this paradox by examining shifting and contested understandings of gender and sexuality during childhood. I use a mixed-methods approach to explore the under-studied phenomenon of homeschooling, with a focus on homeschooling families in Texas, which has some of the least restrictive laws regarding homeschooling in the United States. I use survey data from over 600 homeschooling parents, in-depth interviews with 41 of these parents, and ethnographic methods used during time spent with homeschoolers at home and at larger gatherings to ask: How do parents make the decision to homeschool? What do homeschooling parents think that children need out of education, and why do they see public schools as a less ideal option for providing this? This project contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of gender and sexuality in current debates about school reform, school choice, and the rights of both children and parents.

Author

• Kate H. Averett, University of Texas-Austin