Privatisation in the form of homeschooling in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic

Abstract

This study ties in with the debate that exists between the representatives of critical theory in education (Apple, Lubienski, Brewer) and sociologists of education (Aurini, Davies) about the place and significance of homeschooling within the framework of the neoliberal governance of education. While the first group sees homeschooling as a direct tool of neoliberal governance, the second group finds the position of homeschooling within the framework of neoliberal governance unconvincing. Both types of arguments are examined in relation to the situation, forms and reasons for homeschooling in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, where interviews were conducted with groups of homeschooling parents. The arguments about the development of homeschooling as a privatised but not necessarily neoliberalised form of education are particularly valid in the context of the Czech Republic. They are also valid in the case of a significant segment of homeschoolers in the Slovak Republic, where, however, the arguments of critical theorists of education are also valid, but for a different segment of parents – parents who adopt a religious privatist stance demonstrate a degree of affinity with the neoliberal educational ethos.