Home Schooling - A Rational Choice in a Postmodern World or “ ...

I08 9

Views: 545

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2008, Common Ground Research Networks, All Rights Reserved

Abstract

Home schooling (or home education) is the term frequently used in literature to describe the framework in which children of all ages do not learn in a school environment, usually as the result of a choice made by their parents. Today, an increasing number of children are being educated at home in various countries throughout the world. A qualitative research of home schooling families indicates that contrary to common belief, they are not a collection of eccentric families who have an unconventional approach to life, with a non-rational and metaphysical thinking patterns, but rather a group of people who show rational structured decision-making process and logical arguments.<p> This paper endeavors to identify these decision-making processes, to extract the arguments and to asses them.</p> Examination of the decision-making process shows that there was a rational process that complies with rational decision-making models and comprises: (1) identification and definition of the problem; (2) search for alternatives; (3) selecting an alternative; (4) application of the chosen alternative; (5) coping with the implication of the chosen selection This process is a dynamic description of the logical structure of an argument – or of a chain of secondary arguments. These arguments will be described in this paper. The rational decision making process of the home schoolers, the logical structure of the arguments that they raise, and the large amount of available literature that give their claims foundation, require that serious consideration be given to the home schooling concept in its broader social context as a significant phenomena which represents an important social and educational trend.