Homeschooling in Russia: Barriers and Mechanisms to Overcome Them

Abstract

Secondary education through homeschooling is becoming more common among parents. It is becoming trendy in the context of distance learning when families act as active participants in the educational process at home. One of the most popular reasons for choosing to homeschool is to overcome regional educational inequality — to compensate for it and provide quality education to continue studying at a good university. However, parents of homeschooled children face different barriers. The authors conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with parents of children in grades 1—8 and highlighted the barriers to implementing homeschooling. The article analyzes the identified barriers to the presence or absence of a legal component and gives recommendations on changing the legislation and the organizational model of homeschooling. Acknowledgments. The article was prepared based on the results of an expert-analytical study “Improving the legislative regulation of the family form of general education. Possibilities of combining various forms of education in the development of educational programs of general education” commissioned by the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation in 2019.

Keywords

• homeschooling
• educational law
• barriers to homeschooling
• organization of the educational process
• educational inequality