Date
4-2018
Department
School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Chair
Billie Jean Holubz
Keywords
21st century skills, global awareness, homeschool co-op, homeschooling
Disciplines
Educational Leadership
Recommended Citation
Beck, Bobo, "A Case Study to Understand Global Awareness Among a Christian Homeschooling Group" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 1687.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/1687
Abstract
The purpose of this case study was to document and describe how Christian home educators addressed global awareness in their homeschool curriculum as part of a home education network in a large northeastern city in the United States. My primary research question had to do with how Christian home educators addressed global awareness in their curriculum. There were four sub-questions pertaining to the specifics of addressing global awareness in the homeschool context. The questions were as follows: RQ1 How are Christian home educators implementing 21st Century Skills for Learning?; RQ2 What methods do Christian home educators use to address global awareness?; RQ3 What are some of the benefits of and challenges of addressing global awareness in the Christian homeschool setting?; and RQ4 What further training and/or resources do Christian home educators need, if any, to fully develop their children into globally aware, 21st century learners? Case study research methods were used to record learning activity along with interviews of 17 home educators who belong to the same local co-op. Data analysis consisted of transcription of all audio recordings as well as fieldnotes and interviews. The software ATLAS.ti (Version 1.6.0) was used to code and categorize the transcribed texts for emergent themes. The five themes included biblical worldview integration, flexibility, 21st century learning, broader worldview orientation, and caution. The themes were analyzed for significance and relevance to the research questions. Overall, I found that my participants exhibited a strong sense of their family as a mediating institution and provided multiple levels of support pertaining to addressing global awareness in their curriculum. These findings will fill the current gap regarding global awareness among home education families, a small but growing part of the K-12 educational infrastructure.
