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Does Homeschooling Improve Social Competencies Among Children?

Context

Homeschooling has grown phenomenally during the past 30 years around the world, and especially during the past two years. For example, the number of home-educated children in grades K-12 in the United States grew from an estimated 2.65 million during 2019-2020 to 3.72 million during 2020-2021 (Ray, 2021). In the eastern hemisphere, as another example, “The number of homeschooling families approved by the Israel Ministry of Education increased by 700% from 2005 through 2019” (Madara & BenDavid-Hadar, 2021). 

Numerous studies have examined the demographics and academic achievement of home-educating families and the students (e.g., Ray, 2017). An increasing number of scholars have become focused on an increasingly wider variety of topics with respect to homeschooling. Recently, Michal Unger Madara and Iris BenDavid-Hadar probed the social competencies and creative thinking of home-educated children. This brief review will touch upon only the former topic in the study.

Methods

The researchers aimed to evaluate the social competencies of homeschool children. There are two components of social competencies. One “… is adaptive behavior, defined as a collection of conceptual, social, and practical abilities that a person has learned in order to function in daily life as well as communicate with the environment” (p. 9). 

. . . . .

Findings

None of the background variables was statistically significant in terms of explaining variance in social competencies. Simple regression results explained social competencies according to type of education (β = 0.39***)”; “… homeschooled students have a higher level of social competencies than students attending public schools” (p. 18).  . . . . .

. . . . . [continue research article]  And please see comments below.

--Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.

National Home Education Research Institute

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Keywords, Categories, Tags: 

Socialization, social competencies, social development, homeschool, public school, comparison, creative thinking

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