Education at home: unschooling prospects or freedom of choice?

Abstract

The study focuses on domestic education today, in order to analyze how it has been dealt with by authors who examine the issue, signaling prospects of unschooling related not to the alleged freedom of choice of families, but to the neoliberal project of society. Specifically, the paper addresses the American discussion on the subject, assuming that in Brazil, the option for homeschooling is strongly influenced by this existing practice in the United States. The theoretical and methodological procedure is an essentially bibliographic qualitative research, which references the writings of Paraskeva (2010) and Torres Santomé (2003). It concludes with a partial exposition of the issues raised in the debate on the fact that home and school coexist in society as legitimate spaces for teaching, indicating the tension between the trend of unschooling and the professed right of parents to decide on their children's education.

Keywords domestic education; unschooling; homeschooling; neoliberal project; freedom of choice