The Color of Homeschooling

How race and racism shape middle-class families’ decisions to homeschool their children

While families of color make up 41 percent of homeschoolers in America, little is known about the racial dimensions of this alternate form of education. In The Color of Homeschooling, Mahala Dyer Stewart explores why this percentage has grown exponentially in the past twenty years, and reveals how families’ schooling decisions are heavily shaped by race, class, and gender.

Drawing from almost a hundred interviews with Black and white middle-class homeschooling and nonhomeschooling families, Stewart’s findings contradict many commonly held beliefs about the rationales for homeschooling. Rather than choosing to homeschool based on religious or political beliefs, many middle-class Black mothers explain their schooling choices as motivated by their concerns of racial discrimination in public schools and the school-to-prison pipeline. Indeed, these mothers often voiced concerns that their children would be mistreated by teachers, administrators, or students on account of their race, or that they would be excessively surveilled and policed. Conversely, middle-class white mothers had the privilege of not having to consider race in their decision-making process, opting for homeschooling because of concerns that traditional schools would not adequately cater to their child's behavioral or academic needs. While appearing nonracial, these same decisions often contributed to racial segregation.

The Color of Homeschooling is a timely and much-needed study on how homeschooling serves as a canary in the coal mine, highlighting the perils of school choice policies for reproducing, rather than correcting, long-standing race, class, and gender inequalities in America.

Mahala Dyer Stewart is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hamilton College. She is the author of The Color of Homeschooling: How Inequality Shapes School Choice.Mahala Dyer Stewart is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hamilton College.

Applying an intersectional lens to the question of homeschooling, Stewart offers fresh insight into the at-once classed, gendered, and racialized processes shaping Black and white mothers’ schooling decisions. With careful attention to how power, privilege, and oppression shape the work of motherhood, The Color of Homeschooling is an essential contribution to the literature on race and school choice.

The Color of Homeschooling is a careful and nuanced examination of the sometimes wrenching decisions mothers make to ensure their children receive a good education. This beautifully written book will shape future academic and policy discussions about the choices families make when attempting to navigate public education.

In this remarkable book, Mahala Dyer Stewart demystifies the increasingly popular option of homeschooling in the United States. Rather than arguing for or against this alternative to traditional schooling, Stewart situates her study at the crossroads of schools and families to show how Black and white mothers embrace homeschooling but with radically different political aims. Written with great clarity and empathy, The Color of Homeschooling shows how homeschooling emerges as a key site for protecting children and privilege, with many important lessons for families, educators, and researchers.