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> teaching students not just to be pupils but to be democratic citizens and active participants in public life. The subtext being that homeschooled children gr

> teaching students not just to be pupils but to be democratic citizens and active participants in public life. The subtext being that homeschooled children grow up into worse citizens than schooled children? What is the basis for that?

Barrin92 4y ago
Depends on the motivation but I think there are some straight forward reasons. If the motivation is religious, then withdrawal is the explicit goal. The US say, has a long history of sort of apolitical, religiously secluded parallel communities that are deliberately parochial. Another reason is that if you're not participating in common institutions you have no stake in them. If everyone goes to the same schools (in Germany the idea of the Volksschule), everyone has to participate in civic discourse about what to teach, how to fund education, and how to maintain equal standards. There is a common fabric and shared reality because everyone shares the same space. That's obviously not to say that literally every homeschooled person is disinterested in public life, or vice versa but I think it's hard to see many other motivations for homeschooling other than to withdraw for one reason or another.
- rayiner 4y ago
  From what I have been able to piece together about Germans (my wife lived there and we have had several au pairs from there), they don’t understand the situation with religion in America. In Germany, people gradually stopped participating in organized religion, but the social framework has remained largely intact. Last I checked, German public schools are still required to offer religious education under Article 7-3 of the Basic Law.[1] In the US, secularists have made a concerted effort to scrub every trace of religion out of public life and impose French-style secularism on a country that’s as religious as Poland. And they did that not in the 21st century, but in the 1960s and 1970s, when both Germany and the United States were vastly more religious. Folks who want to homeschool their kids for religious reasons aren’t the nuts that American media makes them out to be. They’re people who in Germany or Sweden or the Netherlands or many other places would be able to avail themselves of public options that those countries include in the mainstream. [1] Germany appears much more content to let social mores evolve organically rather than tearing up the social fabric by rushing change. Germany is a much more liberal country than America, but the laws are much more conservative in many ways. A subset of Americans are besides themselves because the Supreme Court overturned a case recognizing a right to abortion until viability (22 weeks). Meanwhile, Schwangerschaftsabbruch I (deeming abortion to be a violation of the Basic Law’s right to life) is still the law in Germany, and decriminalized abortion is permissible only to 12 weeks. Nobody called Angela Merkel a fascist for voting against same sex marriage. Bavaria requires crosses in public buildings and hasn’t been kicked out of the country. Etc.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    You (or others reason this thread) would probably be interested in the most recent Serial podcast, "The Trojan Horse Affair", which centers on the intersection of religion and public schooling in Birmingham. Religious education is apparently technically a requirement in the UK as well (though, in many places, perhaps more observed in the breach). If you're Muslim in Birmingham, your public school is probably teaches approximately as much Islam as St. Barnabas taught me Catholicism. (It doesn't work out great for Birmingham!)
    - bennysomething 4y ago
      That was the Blair governments terrible idea to give public funding to all religious schools. Coming from northern Ireland where segregation in schools is pretty fundamental to the divide, I couldn't believe the stupidity in implementing this in England.
      - zarzavat 4y ago
        I would go back much further than Blair. The roots of that situation can be found ultimately in the British empire, which lead to the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh, and immigration from those countries into Britain (notably from Sylhet in the 1970s). Crucially, South Asian people are endogamous, meaning that they generally prefer to marry within their communities and moreover within the family: cousin marriage is common. So there has been consistent secondary immigration from the subcontinent as South Asians marry spouses from their communities from their countries of origin and bring them to the UK. The average Bangladeshi or Pakistani citizen's religious views are about as welcome in Britain as the average Briton's secular views would be welcome in Bangladesh. Which is to say that they are disjoint and cannot be reconciled much at all.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        I don't know what you're referring to here, but 51% of Wikipedians believe that religious education (of some form) is compulsory in all UK schools.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  > Another reason is that if you're not participating in common institutions you have no stake in them. What's wrong with disassociation as a motivation? In a borderless world I don't see a reason for forced participation in a place that one might not even like. So long as everyone pay their financial debts, how they live their life shouldn't be anyone's business.

Barrin92 4y ago

Depends on the motivation but I think there are some straight forward reasons. If the motivation is religious, then withdrawal is the explicit goal. The US say, has a long history of sort of apolitical, religiously secluded parallel communities that are deliberately parochial. Another reason is that if you're not participating in common institutions you have no stake in them. If everyone goes to the same schools (in Germany the idea of the Volksschule), everyone has to participate in civic discourse about what to teach, how to fund education, and how to maintain equal standards. There is a common fabric and shared reality because everyone shares the same space. That's obviously not to say that literally every homeschooled person is disinterested in public life, or vice versa but I think it's hard to see many other motivations for homeschooling other than to withdraw for one reason or another.

rayiner 4y ago
From what I have been able to piece together about Germans (my wife lived there and we have had several au pairs from there), they don’t understand the situation with religion in America. In Germany, people gradually stopped participating in organized religion, but the social framework has remained largely intact. Last I checked, German public schools are still required to offer religious education under Article 7-3 of the Basic Law.[1] In the US, secularists have made a concerted effort to scrub every trace of religion out of public life and impose French-style secularism on a country that’s as religious as Poland. And they did that not in the 21st century, but in the 1960s and 1970s, when both Germany and the United States were vastly more religious. Folks who want to homeschool their kids for religious reasons aren’t the nuts that American media makes them out to be. They’re people who in Germany or Sweden or the Netherlands or many other places would be able to avail themselves of public options that those countries include in the mainstream. [1] Germany appears much more content to let social mores evolve organically rather than tearing up the social fabric by rushing change. Germany is a much more liberal country than America, but the laws are much more conservative in many ways. A subset of Americans are besides themselves because the Supreme Court overturned a case recognizing a right to abortion until viability (22 weeks). Meanwhile, Schwangerschaftsabbruch I (deeming abortion to be a violation of the Basic Law’s right to life) is still the law in Germany, and decriminalized abortion is permissible only to 12 weeks. Nobody called Angela Merkel a fascist for voting against same sex marriage. Bavaria requires crosses in public buildings and hasn’t been kicked out of the country. Etc.
- tptacek 4y ago
  You (or others reason this thread) would probably be interested in the most recent Serial podcast, "The Trojan Horse Affair", which centers on the intersection of religion and public schooling in Birmingham. Religious education is apparently technically a requirement in the UK as well (though, in many places, perhaps more observed in the breach). If you're Muslim in Birmingham, your public school is probably teaches approximately as much Islam as St. Barnabas taught me Catholicism. (It doesn't work out great for Birmingham!)
  - bennysomething 4y ago
    That was the Blair governments terrible idea to give public funding to all religious schools. Coming from northern Ireland where segregation in schools is pretty fundamental to the divide, I couldn't believe the stupidity in implementing this in England.
    - zarzavat 4y ago
      I would go back much further than Blair. The roots of that situation can be found ultimately in the British empire, which lead to the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh, and immigration from those countries into Britain (notably from Sylhet in the 1970s). Crucially, South Asian people are endogamous, meaning that they generally prefer to marry within their communities and moreover within the family: cousin marriage is common. So there has been consistent secondary immigration from the subcontinent as South Asians marry spouses from their communities from their countries of origin and bring them to the UK. The average Bangladeshi or Pakistani citizen's religious views are about as welcome in Britain as the average Briton's secular views would be welcome in Bangladesh. Which is to say that they are disjoint and cannot be reconciled much at all.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      I don't know what you're referring to here, but 51% of Wikipedians believe that religious education (of some form) is compulsory in all UK schools.
Dracophoenix 4y ago
> Another reason is that if you're not participating in common institutions you have no stake in them. What's wrong with disassociation as a motivation? In a borderless world I don't see a reason for forced participation in a place that one might not even like. So long as everyone pay their financial debts, how they live their life shouldn't be anyone's business.