The Cultural Resistance Reader by Stephen Duncombe

1915 Words4 Pages

According to Stephen Duncombe in his Introduction to The Cultural Resistance Reader, cultural resistance is “A ‘haven in a heatless world,’ an escape from the world of politics and problems.” (123). Increased privatization of public space was a major form of cultural resistance in 1998. Looking at other forms of cultural resistance I noticed homeschooling and the resistance it generates. In the early 1980’s homeschooling in America increased due to speculations that public schools were teaching unconventional ethics. Since this period, an increase in the number of children home schooled has been recorded. 2.9 percent, or about 1.5 million kids of age to attend school were home schooled in 2007, an increase from previous years. But why this sudden increase when public and private school have been around for so long? Looking further into it, I saw that parents felt that with homeschooling they had more freedom, family time and less worry about what their kids were learning since they are the ones teaching them. After looking at each of these arguments praising homeschooling, I realized that these were not aspects benefiting the children and their futures. Homeschooling is a form of cultural resistance because it escapes reality by having each family deciding their own curriculum and isolating them from social interaction, but since it doesn't generate broader change to the education system, it is ineffective.

Although the reason some families choose to home school is because they want a stronger, more personal education for their child, it has been seen that some children simply drop out of school and say that they are homeschooling, when in reality they are not studying anything since tradition education is not required in the Un...

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...rks Cited

Duncombe, Stephen. "Introduction to The Cultural Resistance Reader." Critical Encounters with Texts: Finding a Place to Stand. By Margaret Himley and Anne Fitzsimmons. New York: Custom Pub., 2009. 117-23. Print.

Duncan, Arne. "The Well-Rounded Curriculum: Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks at the Arts Education Partnership National Forum." U.S. Department of Education. 9 Apr. 2010. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. .

Scaccia, Jesse. "The Case against Homeschooling | Teacher, Revised." Teacher, Revised | Real Talk From Real Teachers. 30 May 2009. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. .

Sowell, Thomas. "Postponing Reality." Capitalism Magazine. 21 Feb. 2006. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. .

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