-
2018 ASPIRE Fellow
-
2015-2016 Service-Learning Faculty Fellow
-
2014 COE Carl Glickman Faculty Fellow Award
-
International Center for Home Education ResearchFounding Board Member
Cheryl Fields-Smith
Prior to earning her doctorate from Emory University in 2004, Dr. Fields-Smith served as an elementary school teacher in Bridgeport, Stamford, and Norwalk, Connecticut. During her tenure as a teacher she taught in two magnet schools, both of which employed the Bank Street Model, which emphasizes child-centered, hands-on, experiential learning through thematic, social studies-based integrated instruction.
Dr. Fields-Smith’s research interests include family engagement and homeschooling among Black families. Her dissertation explored family engagement from the perspective of 22 Black middle class families. Later, she received a Spencer Foundation Grant to conduct a two-year study focused on homeschooling among 46 Black families. From this study Dr. Fields-Smith has published several journal articles and chapters, which among them include the first empirically-based publication to focus exclusively on Black homeschool families. Her research on homeschooling among Black families has most recently been featured in a PBS NewsHour report and the Atlantic.
Read More
A thoughtful, research-based discussion of Black homeschool experiences as models for educational improvement in K–12 public education
In Creating Educational Justice, Cheryl Fields-Smith upholds the decisions of Black parents to homeschool their children as acts of empowerment, resistance, and educational justice. The work spotlights the various motivations of Black families to home educate, bringing attention to key issues facing K–12 public schooling in the United States.
Fields-Smith shares the voices and perspectives of sixty Black home educators from a range of demographic backgrounds. Many of these families moved to homeschooling after students began their formal education in public schools, citing both problems endemic to US public schools (curriculum limitations, teacher shortages, and inadequate resources) and those faced particularly by Black students (marginalization of Black parents’ engagement, deficit narratives surrounding Black student ability, discriminatory disciplinary practices, and overrepresentation in special education) as reasons for their switch. Their stories demonstrate the many ways in which Black home education curates learning opportunities that promote positive identity development and racial healing, as well as academic success, in ways that traditional schools often cannot...(Read More)
"This book expands the concept of homeplace with contemporary Black homeschooling positioned as a form of resistance among single Black mothers. Chapters explore each mother’s experience and unique context from their own perspectives in deciding to homeschool and developing their practice. It corroborates many of the issues that plague the education of Black children in America, including discipline disproportionality, frequent referrals to special education services, teachers’ low expectations, and the marginalization of Black parents as partners in traditional schools. This book demonstrates how single mothers experience the inequity in school choice policies and also provides an understanding of how single Black mothers experience home-school partnerships within traditional schools. Most importantly, this volume challenges stereotypical characterizations of who homeschools and why."
