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Expanding numbers of researchers are focusing on the scale and impact of private supplementary tutoring. Such tutoring is widely called shadow education, since much of its curriculum mimics that of regular schooling. Although shadow education has expanded significantly worldwide and is now recognized to have far-reaching significance, research faces methodological and conceptual challenges. This article focuses on analyses of shadow education data from the Third (or Trends in) International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). An initial problem arises from definitions of shadow education and therefore from research focus. Further challenges arise from the initial phrasing and then translation of items in international questionnaires. The article notes that some studies have been grounded in problematic data, which has led to misleading pictures. Methods and approaches are maturing, but much refinement remains necessary for an adequate understanding of the nature and implications of shadow education.

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The paper focuses on teacher-supplied private tutoring in the context of post-Soviet Georgia, and elucidates the ways in which teacher-supplied private tutoring can be related to educational corruption. The paper draws on data from in-depth interviews of 18 school teachers in different parts of Georgia in 2013. The findings of the qualitative study indicate challenges that teachers face as a result of their dual lives between schools and private tutoring. The challenges include moral dilemmas related to tutoring their students. The paper discusses how private tutoring becomes a "survival strategy" in the education system with low teacher pay, weak accountability system, and lack of monitoring efficacy. It highlights that the widely normalized practice in Georgia of teachers tutoring their students is not necessarily a form of corruption. However, it includes a high risk of corruption because of a thin line existing between teacher professional ethics and misconduct. Understanding how teachers rationalize tutoring their students contributes to the international research agenda by exploring teachers' perspectives on private tutoring, and offers insights into what constitutes teacher corruption in post-Soviet Georgia, making an important contribution to the international scholarship on educational corruption.