This paper examines how stances and understandings pertaining to whether home education is civically legitimate within liberal democratic contexts can depend on how one conceives normative roles of the secular state and the religious neutrality that is commonly associated with it. For the purposes of this paper, home education is understood as a…

Homeschooling is legal and growing in many countries but is virtually forbidden by law in Germany and a few others. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has reviewed and upheld this ban. Is home education a human right? How do these courts employ their jurisprudence of proportionality to find banning home education does not violate relevant…

The article presents the legal situation of home education in Germany as a multi-level problem touching upon German constitutional law, State (Länder) constitutional law as well as administrative law, and the liberties of the European Convention of Human Rights. Whereas the parents' right to care for their children is explicitly granted by German…