Description
Book SynopsisPlaces home schoolers within longer traditions of American social activism. This work reveals that home schooling is not a random collection of individuals but an elaborate social movement with its own celebrities, networks, and characteristic lifeways. It shows what happens when progressive ideals meet conventional politics.
Trade Review"Stevens spent ten years interviewing home-schooling families, watching them teach, pitching tents at their summer camps, hanging out at their conferences, and reading their publications. He has written a careful, intelligent book"--Margaret Talbot, Atlantic Monthly "In the press and on television, home-schoolers are portrayed mainly as white Americans of strong Christian background, most of whom are right-wing fundamentalists. Stevens's study confirms this generic picture, yet his study helps us go beyond it... [T]he intellectual origins of home-schooling are surprisingly nonsectarian."--Howard Gardner, New York Review of Books "Kingdom of Children is about the grown-ups behind the not-so peaceful movement... As Stevens makes clear, those drawn to home schooling tend to be a stronger-willed, contentious lot, and removing them from the public school system doesn't make them less so."--Rebecca Jones, American School Board Journal "For anyone interested in home schooling, this is the book to read."--Choice "This book is extremely well written and thought provoking... Kingdom of Children will no doubt play an important role in the much-needed sociological dialogue surrounding home schooling."--Ed Collom, American Journal of Sociology
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments xi Introduction 3 Chapter One: Inside Home Educatin 10 Chapter Two: From Parents to Teachers 30 Chapter Three: Natural Mothers, Godly Women 72 Chapter Four: Authority and Diversity 107 Chapter Five: Politics 143 Chapter Six: Nurturing the Expanded Self 178 Notes 199 Index 225
