School: Socialized or Civilized?

It’s kind of an old debate, but the question of “socialization” seems to come up a fair amount when I talk about homeschooling with people who aren’t familiar with that way of life.

Usually I give the half-facetious remark that we don’t send our kids to school precisely because school seeks to socialize them.   That starts a nice conversation about the role of institutions in shaping the behaviours of young people.   In general people expect schools to do these things but then there is very little deep conversation about the role of school when folks talk about youth alienation, the hyper-extension of adolescence or gang culture and violence.   Most often the media comes in for blame, and no one looks at how well the school based “socialization” program works.

At any rate, today I found a nice piece at one of regular homeschooling blogs that gives the question some more thought, and I invite you to have a look if the question interests you.