As this chapter indicates, an increasing number of people seeking alternatives to conventional public schools have opted to homeschool their children. As a result, a num­ber of organizations have emerged that are designed to promote homeschooling and to ensure that the parents doing the homeschooling are provided with necessary training and instructional resources. Use the Internet to examine some of the websites of these organizations to get a better understanding of the messages they convey about the rationales for homeschooling and the audiences to which they are targeting these messages. Given that par­ents engaged in homeschooling are prosumers, consum­ing information about and producing education for their children, how do the messages attempt to convince them that they are capable of doing so? Do the messages criticize public schools explicitly or implicitly? Do you find the claims convincing? What would you want to know before making a sociologically informed assessment of the homeschooling alternative?

 This chapter points out that a large and increasing number of people in the world today consider themselves nonreli­gious. For this activity, think of yourself as someone who is nonreligious seeking to become a member of one of the major world religions. Use the Internet (Google search, Twitter hashtags) to learn more about the major world reli­gions and to determine the pros and cons of trying to adopt and participate in a specific religion. What would you do to facilitate your membership? How is choosing a religion different from choosing to buy a certain product or join a certain gym?