People are very opinionated about this topic, and I’m sure that’s because there’s not really an answer to “does homeschooling have negative impacts on social development?”, beyond “It depends.”

I’m saying this as an unschooler, who was entirely without a mandated curriculum from 2nd grade until adulthood.

A lot of it depends on the reasons for home schooling. My mum was just hippie-crunchy enough that when 6 year old me said I didn’t want to go to school, she just let me leave at the end of the year.

I’ve met incredibly awkward homeschoolers who were not in school due to religious parents. I’ve met families who just travel so much, it was easier on everybody to just homeschool their kids - these kids tend to be more socially developed than average IMO - May be because that lifestyle rewards kids for being outgoing. I’ve noticed many more trends, but there is ALWAYS an exception to the rule.

I should note that “successful” homeschooling does seem correlated with economic and social privilege; for me this was the case - I had the privilege of being raised in the greater Boston area, near enough public transport I could go into the city whenever I want. Personally, I can’t imagine raising kids in a rural environment where they can’t take bus anywhere, and don’t have easy access to other kids their own raise. But, of course, I know several people who were raised like that and are way more mature adults than most. I think this point is obvious, but traditional homeschooling also requires the privilege of having a parent who is not working, or the money to hire tutors (unschooling and co-op based homeschooling obviously has less of a dependency here).