Homeschooling

Homeschooling – also called home education or home school – is the education of children at home rather than in a public or private school. Prior to the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws in the 19th century, most childhood education worldwide occurred within the family or community, with only a small portion of the population attending schools or employing tutors. Today most children are institutionally schooled.

Especially in the English-speaking nations, homeschooling is an option for parents who wish to provide a quality of education or social environment that they believe is unattainable in schools.

Homeschooling may refer to instruction in the home under the supervision of correspondence schools or umbrella schools. A curriculum-free philosophy of homeschooling may be called unschooling, a term coined in 1977 by American educator John Holt in his magazine Growing Without Schooling.