A national survey of American families was conducted to ascertain the extent of interest in self-directed education (SDE) in the United States. Our research took place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic--a moment when we required a much better understanding of what parents need from the US education system. Data were gathered using an online…

In the late 20th century, an interesting phenomenon appeared on the landscape of western education: parents chose to educate their children at home rather than send them to school. Numerous studies were published on the subject in recent decades. However, most of them examine home schooling from the parents' perspective. This study is unique as it…

This paper presents a constructivist grounded theory on the decision-making process that UK home and alternative educators undertake and the related influencing factors. Twenty-one participants from a diverse range of backgrounds were interviewed between one and three times over a two-year period. Some were current home and alternative educators…

Homeschools have grown in prevalence in recent decades in the United States, including an unprecedented increase in homeschooling rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present quantitative study sought to add to the growing homeschool research by examining an existing depersonalized data set from the Classic Learning Test [CLT] suite of…

School choice is spreading across the U.S. at the same time that scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) are stagnant. We examine the association between education freedom and 8th grade student NAEP score levels and gains in states in 2019. We construct the 2019 Education Freedom Index as a composite measure of the…

Despite upwards of 100,000 gifted students possibly being educated at home, research regarding this population is limited. The literature on gifted homeschooling includes topics such as motivations for homeschooling, modalities of instruction, and student achievement and social-emotional wellness. Recommendations for expanding the literature and…

This article theorizes how crises and markets shape the responses of consumers and producer organizations. We advance four propositions: 1) if a crisis requires major revisions in operational rules, less-exit sensitive (i.e., monopoly-like) organizations shall revise to aggregate preferences of organized producers; and more-exit sensitive…

The practice of home education has expanded considerably and international research has shown that different families perform home education in very different ways. Nevertheless, there has been no examination to date of the relationship between the type of home education practised and the emotional and behavioural aspects of children. The research…

Homeschooling was occasionally a subject of popular interest pre-COVID, when media reported horrific cases of child abuse under the guise of homeschooling, or when controversies erupted over efforts in state legislatures or local school boards to introduce very modest oversight measures. COVID made homeschooling something nearly every parent…

Home education is a legal educational option in Australia that continues to rise in popularity. This paper summarises the demographics and influences upon the decision to home educate of 385 home education families from Australia, representing 676 children who were home educated at the time of questionnaire completion. The research suggests female…

Over the first two school years under the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 enrollment in public schools decreased dramatically--with losses concentrated among the youngest students--and the pandemic has had historically unprecedented effects on available learning opportunities. Little is known about where these students went and what learning environments…

There are vast disparities in educational outcomes along the lines of race and socioeconomic status in the American PreK-12 education system. One of the contributing factors to this discrepancy is the enrichment gap. Put simply, racially marginalized and low-income students are less likely to participate in enriching, supplemental learning…

We used data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey to examine homeschool participation at the national and state levels and compare it to participation estimates from other surveys. The Household Pulse Survey also provides demographic information about the survey respondents. Specifically, we examined respondent characteristics of…

One schooling sector that had been growing before the pandemic, hybrid schools, in which students attend physical classes fewer than five days per week and are homeschooled on the other days, has seen recent continued growth. One factor that has not been explored is the commuting patterns families follow to use these schools. Whether families…

Inherently, populism questions elite values and expertise; thus, populists oppose and usually are opposed by elites. Here, I discuss how American Political Science treats elitism, pluralism, and populism, relying heavily on the U.S. Founders' constitutional approaches limiting the power of factions to impose social and political uniformity.…