Think home-schoolers are just religious white families? You might want to think again

If I asked you to close your eyes and picture a family that home-schools their children, what would that family look like? 

If I had to guess, you’re imagining stereotypical home-schoolers that you’ve heard about from friends or seen portrayed in mass media: a large, religious family — probably white — with plenty of resources and a desire to shelter their kids from the outside world. 

Wherever it came from, that stereotype has never quite fit the facts on the ground, and new research shows just how much the face of home-schooling in America is changing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the fantastic book “Kingdom of Children,” Stanford sociologist Mitchell Stevens tracks the history of the modern home-schooling movement. He identifies two groups of home-schoolers: the believers and the inclusives. The believers are what many people stereotypically think of when they think of home-schoolers: conservative, traditionalist families who oppose the secularization of the contemporary education system and the system’s efforts to remove children from their families at increasingly young ages. 

But they are not the only families who home-school their children. The inclusives, who make up a substantial portion of American home-schooling families, are generally progressive parents and pedagogues who are romantic in their views toward the innate abilities and character of children, believing that schools are stifling institutions that harm children’s creativity and emotional development.

There is also a long tradition of home-schooling in the African American community. Researchers such as the University of Georgia’s Cheryl Fields-Smith have conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups with African American home-schoolers to understand why they home-school and what their experiences have been. Many African American families home-school because they do not believe that their child’s school has the same high expectations that they do, and often feel like their children, especially their sons, are singled out unfairly as discipline problems.

But perhaps the most interesting look into the changing face of home-schooling came from the U.S. Census Bureau earlier this year. At the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, the Census Bureau created the Household Pulse Survey to better understand the impact of the pandemic on American families. They included a question asking about homes-chooling — the classic definition of home-schooling, not doing remote schoolwork from home.

What they found was fascinating. The Census Bureau estimates that pre-pandemic, 3.3% of American households home-schooled their children. By the first administration of the survey in late April and early May, that number had jumped to 5.4%. By the next iteration in late September and early October, it had jumped to 11.1%.

If the topline number wasn’t surprising enough, analysts also dug into where home-schooling was growing and in what populations. In deep red Oklahoma, home-schooling jumped from 7.7% of families to 20.1% from spring to fall. In deep blue Massachusetts, it went from just 1.5% to 12.1% during the same time period. Florida grew from 5% to 18.1%. Closer to home, Missouri moved from 5.9% to 10.9% and Kansas increased from 2.4% to 10.1%.

The Census Bureau also broke down the findings by race and ethnicity. The group with both the largest growth in home-schooling and the largest percentage of families home-schooling their children in the fall of 2020 were African Americans. While only 3.3% of African American families home-schooled in the spring of 2020, 16.1% were home-schooling in the fall. home-schooling was next most popular with Hispanic families, at 12.1%, then white families at 9.7% and then Asian families at 8.8%.

Every month, EdChoice partners with Morning Consult Intelligence to poll a nationally representative sample of Americans. Since last April, we have asked families if they are more or less favorable to home-schooling as a result of the pandemic. Our most recent survey in April 2021 found that 71% of African American families and 71% of Hispanic families were either “much” or “somewhat” more favorable to home-schooling as a result of the pandemic. The number was lower, but still substantial, for both Asian families (63%) and white families (62%).

Stereotypes about home-schoolers never really fit the facts on the ground, but they are especially erroneous now. Families decide to home-school for a variety of reasons, and home-schooling looks different in different households. Rather than fall back on lazy assumptions, we should take a moment to examine the movement in all of its interesting diversity.

Michael McShane is director of national research at the 501 (c)(3) nonprofit EdChoice.

This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Think home-schoolers are just religious white families? You might want to think again."