Abstract
In this chapter, I examine the ways in which the claim to subaltern status has led to a partial withdrawal from state-run institutions and to a practice of schooling that is meant to equip the children of authoritarian populist conservative religious parents both with an armor to defend what these groups believe is their threatened culture and with a set of skills and values that will change the world so that it reflects the conservative religious commitments that are so central to their lives. I focus on the ways in which new technologies such as the Internet have become essential resources in what authoritarian populists see as a counter-hegemonic struggle against secular humanism and a world that no longer “listens to God’s word”. In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that new technologies such as the Internet actually enable the formation and growth of such religious movements and enhance their ability to challenge secularity. Much of my discussion centers around the place of gender in these movements since conservative women are key actors here and have multiple identities within them—simultaneously able to claim subaltern status based on the history of dominant gender regimes and having dominant status given their positioning in relationship to other oppressed groups.
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Notes
This chapter is based on a briefer treatment in Michael W. Apple (2006).
1. The Right has been in the forefront of the use of the Internet, not only in creating linkages among existing members on key issues of concern. In understanding that youth are among the heaviest users of the Internet, conservative organizations have creatively employed such technology to build sophisticated websites whose form and content appeal to youth (Hardisty 1999, p. 46).
2. Actually, many of these technologies in fact were not labor saving ultimately. See Schwarz Cowan (1983) and Strasser (1982).
3. Much of this literature, however, draws upon the experiences of White women. The meaning of domesticity and the discourses of motherhood among Black women cannot be understood from the standpoint of dominant groups. For more on this crucial point, see Boris (1993). Since the vast majority of right-wing homeschoolers are indeed White, I have drawn upon a literature that is based in their experiences.
4. I would like to thank Rima D. Apple for her helpful comments on this section.
5. One of the most powerful figures in HSLDA has been Michael Farris. He has acted as both a public spokesperson for conservative homeschoolers and as a legal advocate in court cases around the country. Farris has a long history of rightist activism. He ran for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 1993 on a strikingly conservative platform. Interestingly enough, he did not receive the endorsement of a number of other conservative Christian groups and national figures who believed that his public positions might alienate swing voters and actually harm the rightist cause. See Rozell and Wilcox (1996); See also Wilcox and Rozell (2000).
6. I am not assuming the normative heterosexual family here. There is no literature on gay and lesbian homeschoolers. Given the ideological position that the vast majority of conservative evangelicals take on the question of sexuality, I am simply reflecting their own assumptions.
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Apple, M.W. (2013). Gender, Religion, and the Work of Homeschooling. In: Gross, Z., Davies, L., Diab, AK. (eds) Gender, Religion and Education in a Chaotic Postmodern World. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5270-2_2
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