Exploring Single Black Mothers' Resistance Through Homeschooling

This book expands the concept of homeplace with contemporary Black homeschooling positioned as a form of resistance among single Black mothers. Chapters explore each mother's experience and unique context from their own perspectives in deciding to homeschool and developing their practice. It corroborates many of the issues that plague the education of Black children in America, including discipline disproportionality, frequent referrals to special education services, teachers' low expectations, and the marginalization of Black parents as partners in traditional schools. This book demonstrates how single mothers experience the inequity in school choice policies and also provides an understanding of how single Black mothers experience home-school partnerships within traditional schools. Most importantly, this volume challenges stereotypical characterizations of who homeschools and why.

2020 AESA CRITICS' CHOICE BOOK AWARD WINNER Employs Black Feminist Theory to relate the personal narratives of four specific single Black mothers and the factors influencing their continued decisions to homeschool their children Challenges demographic assumptions of who homeschools and why Ties research participants' personal narratives into the historical and ongoing challenges facing Black education in the US, including school choice policy and racialized school practices

Auteur

Cheryl Fields-Smith is Associate Professor in Elementary Education at the University of Georgia, USA. Her research interests include family engagement, home-school-community partnerships, and homeschooling among Black families.

Résumé
"Home-schooling single mothers may find in this book resources to avoid the shame often associated with their situation. Researchers will find four detailed life stories that intricately intertwine the motivations and sociological factors explaining the decision to homeschool. Policy makers could read how some mothers feel compelled to homeschool by a public system that fails to provide acceptable solutions, but also that homeschooling can contrastively be experienced by seemingly disadvantaged mothers as a positive choice." (Philippe Bongrand, Educational Review, Vol. 74 (3), 2022)

Contenu

1. Voices Speaking Truths from Our Past and Our Present.- 2. Conceptualizing Contemporary Black Homeschooling and Single Black Mothers' Resistance.- 3. Margaret Homeschooling as a Mother's Right.- 4. Dahlia Homeschooling as a Last Resort.- 5. Yvette Homeschooling as Split-schooling: Homeschooling One of Two.- 6. Chloe Homeschooling as a Way of Life.- 7. The Significance of Single Black Mothers Homeschooling.-