Chapter 4: STATE POWER VERSUS PARENTAL RIGHTS: An International Human Rights Perspective on Home Education

In this chapter, I shall argue that excessive state control over education that does not allow for home education not only violates core human rights norms and principles but that such control points the way to a totalitarian vision of education that is anathema to democracy, human rights, and liberty.

The interface between the family as the fundamental group unit of society and government in the context of education yields important insights regarding how certain cultures and societies view education, the family, and parental rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). Although home schooling is a specific exercise of parental rights in the educational context and provides a focused setting in which to evaluate parental rights, home education is also considered an established, accepted, well-documented and maturing educational-social movement in the United States (Murphy, 2012).