This digest offers background information on home schooling and discusses conflicting viewpoints culled from research on the socialization of home-schooled children. The digest first notes the rapidly escalating numbers of children who are being home schooled in the 1990s and comments upon the professionalization of resources offered for parents who home school. The digest then addresses some of the reasons that parents school their children at home. They include: living in areas where schools are not readily available and being anxious about the physical well being of their children in an increasingly more violent school setting. Next the digest discusses current research on socialization of children. Finally, it is pointed out that most experts feel that more research on home schooling and socialization is necessary--that what is available is inconclusive. Contains 8 references. (NKA)