An inevitable phenomenon: Reflections on the origins and future of worldwide shadow education

Baker, David P.

doi:10.1111/ejed.12410

Cited by 28 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…This article makes a case for further investigation of private tutoring as an educational phenomenon. Private tutoring is indeed integral to the larger social institution of education -as Baker (2020) argues and this article provides evidence for -and, as such, it has implications for the changing dynamics between education and society at large. Up until now, most studies on schooling and society have focused their explorations only on formal schooling, leaving private tutoring outside the scope of scholarly scrutiny.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Exposing the “shadow”: an empirical scrutiny of the “shadowing process” of private tutoring in India

Gupta

2021

Educational Review

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A growing body of research shows that private tutoring is a globally pervasive phenomenon. A common way in which tutoring provisions are defined is with the use of the metaphor "shadow education", signifying that tutoring centres "shadow" formal schools. Despite the popularity of this metaphor in the field, how "shadowing" occurs as a process and what implications this process has for formal schooling and society have seldom been put through empirical scrutiny. To redress this gap in the literature, this article draws on the data produced through an ethnography of schooling in Dehradun (India) between 2014-15. The discussion on specific ways in which the institutional arrangement of private tutoring aligns with that of formal schooling reveals the socio-educational embeddedness of private tutoring within the mainstream schooling experience in India. The article argues that "shadowing" is not a neutral process, it is executed tactically and strategically with an aim to provide private tutoring a valued, legitimised, and competitive space in an increasingly marketised education sector. Importantly, this analysis of "shadowing" exposes problematic practices within formal schooling and suggests that by mirroring these practices in its structure, private tutoring reproduces social inequality. The insights into understanding the "shadowing process" that this article offers may be of value to the analysis of the organisational arrangements of tutoring businesses within India and in other societies. Through demonstrating that tutoring is part of everyday schooling, this article makes a case for recognising it as integral to mainstream education in India.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Exposing the “shadow”: an empirical scrutiny of the “shadowing process” of private tutoring in India

Gupta

2021

Educational Review

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“…From a neo-institutionalist perspective, the growing importance of education in human society led to the observed worldwide emergence, expansion, and universalization of SE (Baker, 2020; Baker and LeTendre, 2005; Byun et al, 2018; Entrich, 2018; Mori and Baker, 2010). Alongside the global expansion, institutionalization, and universalization of formal education, a new globally institutionalized expectation structure for education emerged (Biermann and Powell, 2014).…”

Section: Theoretical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This internationally heightened importance of education not only led nation-states to provide more equal and high-quality education but motivated families to seek ever more educational opportunities in the non-formal education sectors (Baker and LeTendre, 2005; Byun et al, 2018). Following this line of argument, SE essentially became inevitable and ubiquitous, because it arises out of everything that is valued as common good about the provision of education and because of the increased private interest in education as the “preparer and arbitrator of future success for nearly everyone’s children around the world” (Baker, 2020: 312). It is important to highlight here that both the high esteem of equal educational opportunities and the increasing investment in non-formal, private education are not contradictory because both value the same goal: “the educational development of the individual as a central source for the collective well-being” (Schaub et al, 2020: 1074).…”

Section: Theoretical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although SE was long viewed as an exotic East Asian “cultural oddity” (Baker, 2020), it is now a substantial topic in comparative sociology and education (Zhang and Bray, 2020). With good reason, SE has become a major global phenomenon, a part of mass schooling in many societies and probably the most significant international trend in education in the 21st century (Bray, 2017; Byun et al, 2018; Entrich, 2018; Gordon Győri, 2020; Kim and Jung, 2019; Kobakhidze and Suter, 2020; Mori and Baker, 2010; Šťastný and Kobakhidze, 2020; Wiseman, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Worldwide shadow education and social inequality: Explaining differences in the socioeconomic gap in access to shadow education across 63 societies

Entrich

2020

International Journal of Comparative Sociology

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This article examines the cross-national differences in socioeconomic accessibility to shadow education (SE) across 63 societies. Drawing on arguments from two competing theoretical models either emphasizing cross-national cultural, economic, and institutional differences (e.g. model of secondary schooling, scale of SE) or universally working social reproduction mechanisms (e.g. enrichment features of SE), this study provides a novel approach to understanding the role of SE for social inequality. More specifically, while the first model explicitly allows equality in access to SE, the latter suggests that SE fosters inequality under all circumstances. Using data from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and official sources, first, the difference in the probability of top in comparison to bottom socioeconomic strata to use SE is predicted separately for all societies, before analyzing what causes the found considerable cross-national variation in the socioeconomic gap in access to SE at the country level. Results indicate that differences in SE access are linked to incentives for high-performing students to use SE. These incentives are especially common in societies with higher educational institutional differentiation (e.g. early or mixed tracking schooling models). In societies with less stratified education systems, access to SE is more equal, wherefore the potential effect of SE to social inequality is dampened. Overall, findings suggest that simple generalizations based on existing theoretical models provide no comprehensive explanation for the connection between SE and inequality. Instead, prominent beliefs about the relationship between SE and inequality are questioned.

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“…Private tutoring is familiar with different names in different areas like sishu in Mainland China, buxiban in Taiwan of China, hakwon in South Korea, juku in Japan, and nachhilfe in Germany (Kim and Jung, 2019). Due to its significant growth and high implications on education and economy, it has been scholarly studied since the early 1990s (Mori and Baker, 2010;Baker, 2020;Bray et al, 2015). Some scholars paid attention to the evolution (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Private tutoring in Bangladesh: evolution, expansion, and policy responses

Alam¹,

Zhi-yong

2021

IJCED

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PurposeThis study explores the development trajectory of private tutoring in Bangladesh. Specifically, it illustrates how private tutoring has emerged and expanded in the country's education system and examines how governments have responded on this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted a case study methodology for this study. Data were gathered from different secondary sources such as books, official documents, scholarly articles, and newspaper reports. The data analysis process consists of three-phases of activities: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification.FindingsPrivate tutoring historically existed in Bangladesh. It is rapidly expanded in the country's education system – from primary to higher secondary level. Currently, it has reached an industrialization stage, where commercial coaching has become a major type of tutoring. The expansion of private tutoring is the inevitable result of the continued privatization and marketization of education. To bring the private tutoring under a framework, the government has taken some regulatory measures that can be characterized as “laissez-faire.” The existing measures are largely ineffective, as the policy makers followed an “top-down” approach when framing the policies.Originality/valueThis study, to the best of the authors' knowledge, is the first to target the historical aspects of private tutoring in Bangladesh. It has potential to fill out the literature gap on private tutoring by analyzing its policy aspect.

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An inevitable phenomenon: Reflections on the origins and future of worldwide shadow education

Cited by 28 publications

References 11 publications

Exposing the “shadow”: an empirical scrutiny of the “shadowing process” of private tutoring in India

Exposing the “shadow”: an empirical scrutiny of the “shadowing process” of private tutoring in India

Worldwide shadow education and social inequality: Explaining differences in the socioeconomic gap in access to shadow education across 63 societies

Private tutoring in Bangladesh: evolution, expansion, and policy responses

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