But what about socialization?...

The question EVERY homeschooler hears. I've usually responded, tongue in cheek, that for every strange homeschooled child you find, I'll find at least ten more in the local public school. Thanks to a study by the Home School Legal Defense Association and the National Home Education Research Institute, we now have data based on a survey of over 7,300 adults who were homeschooled (of which, over 5,000 had been home educated at least seven years). In Homeschooling Grows Up, we find that a higher percentage of homeschooled educated children go on to post high school education than the general population (see figure below). Note that almost half of the respondents were still full-time students and had not yet received their degree. In terms of civic involvement, homeschooled educated children also outranked the general population (see figure below). Note that this trend refutes a common criticism from within the Church that those who are homeschooling have retreated or that they are ignoring the needs of the unsaved within the public school system. Rather, this data should indicate that the types of citizens produced by homeschooling are solid Christians who understand the importance of taking their Christian influence into the civic arena. It is certainly refreshing to see such solid data coming in on the benefits of homeschooling. In the future we should hope to see surveys based on even larger samplings.