Variegated Roles of and Relationships Between Private Tutoring and Schooling: Insights From the State of Maharashtra, India

Purpose:The relationship between private tutoring(PT)and mainstream education is among the complex themes characterizing PT discourses in the literature.This study examined the complications of practices and processes in tutoring and schooling to elucidate different roles played by PT and its relationship with mainstream education.Design/Approach/Methods:This study used qualitative data from a diverse set of 37 PT providers from the State of Maharashtra,India,to delineate their roles and explore their relationship with schooling in this context.Findings:The classification of PT providers roles into complementary,accommodating,competing,and substitutive ones demonstrated a diverse range of relationships between PT and mainstream education.Further analysis showed that these relationships are dynamic in nature,and the boundaries between them are blurred.Originality/Value:Research in the field of PT has been consistently pointing toward a perplexing mixture of positive and negative outcomes resulting from its relationship with mainstream education.This study transcended the positive vis-a-vis negative binary approach by contributing to the deeper understanding of PT relationships.Furthermore,it exemplified how future studies can disentangle the complexities of such relationships by deploying flexible,context-specific theoretical approaches.

Complexity of the Contexts:Features of Private Tutoring and Units for Comparison in the GCC Countries of the Middle East

Purpose:Private supplementary tutoringwidely known as shadow education because of the ways in which it mimics regular schooling-is increasingly visible across the globe.The Middle East is no exception,though the phenomenon has received relatively little attention in the English-language literature.This article maps some key features of shadow education,identifying ways in which contextual forces have shaped it.Design/Approach/Methods:The article focuses on patterns across and within the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council(GCC),namely Bahrain,Kuwait,Oman,Qatar,Saudi Arabia,and the United Arab Emirates.It draws on literature in both Arabic and English and shows the value of multipleunits of comparison.Findings:Private tutoring has a long history as a significant phenomenon in some GCC countries,but in others developed more recently.Some governments have had active policies to dampen the phenomenon,but with little success.Factors in the complex dynamics include social,economic andcultural forces.OriginalityValue:The article assembles literature from around the region,noting both commonalities and diversities among GCC members.It contributes to the global literature by providing the regional mapping from this specific part of the world and by showing comparisons with other world regions.

The Cause of Institutionalized Private Tutoring in Korea:Defective Public Schooling or a Universal Desire for Family Reproduction?

Purpose:In Korea,private tutoring is considered a social evil that damages the capacity of public schooling and undermines social justice.Although the government has implemented various policies to reduce private tutoring,ranging from improving the quality of education to providing"quasi-private tutoring"programs and regulating the shadow education market,total spending on private tutoring has continued to increase.This study examines a little noticed but important cause of institutionalized private tutoring in Korea.Design/Approach/Methods:The study employed a socio-ecological perspective to analyze both education and socio-structural factors.An extensive review of the government's private tutoring reduction policies and related literature was conducted.Findings:Private tutoring functions as a means by which parents can help their children compete for admission to prestigious universities and pass on wealth and social status to their children.Participation in private tutoring has become a social norm that is taken for granted.The root causes of institutionalized private tutoring lie in both educational and socio-structural factors.Originality/Nalue:The study suggests that government policies,when ignoring the long-established"grammar"of parents about children's education,may either end in failure or produce unintended consequences.

Who Is More Likely to Participate in Private Tutoring and Does It Work?:Evidence from PISA(2015)

Purpose-In recent years,private tutoring has become increasingly prevalent in China and has become both a dominant way for students to learn after school and a major component of family educational expenditure.This paper aims to analyze the factors that affect Chinese students’participation in private tutoring and the effectiveness of private tutoring.Design/Approach/Methods-We use data from the Programme for International Student Assessment(PISA)2015 of China's Mainland area and focus specifically on science-related private tutoring.Multilevel logistic model and hierarchical linear model based on coarsened exact matching(CEM)are used to conduct the investigations.Findings-Empirical results show that individual level factors including student’s interest in science,educational expectations,and school-level factors such as school autonomy,science-related learning resources and school size pose a significant influence on the likelihood of participation in private tutoring.Moreover,science-related private tutoring has not significantly improved the overall scientific literacy scores of students.In addition,private tutoring has widened the performance gap among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds,with students from socioeconomically advantaged family experiencing more significant gains from tutoring.Originality/Value-These findings suggest that providing free high-quality tutoring to students from disadvantaged families might be an effective way of promoting educational equity.

The Rise of Private Tutoring in Denmark:An Entrepreneur's Perspectives and Experiences

This article sheds light on the emergence of private tutoring in Denmark.Written from the perspective of a tutoring entrepreneur,it discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by a fledgling tutoring company in present-day Danish society.The article is a personal narrative of the author's experience with establishing the first major Danish tutoring company.The enthusiastic response by parents to the services offered by the author's company shows that there has long existed a hitherto unmet need for private tutoring in Denmark.However,the author also argues that the political turmoil surrounding the 2013 Danish school reform made parents increasingly sceptical that mainstream schools could effectively address the needs of their children.It thereby prepared the ground for launching a private tutoring concept.It is only in the last decade that private tutoring has emerged in Denmark.The article provides a unique insider's perspective on this largely unexplored development.

English Private Tutoring in Macao:Perceptions of Senior Secondary Three Students

Purpose:This article examines how individual,school,and social factors shape the perceptions of students in Senior Secondary Three(SS3;in some schools called Form Six[F6])toward English private tutoring in Macao.Design/Approach/Methods:This is a comparative study of two F6 classes of an English-medium secondary school and four SS3 classes of a Chinese-medium secondary school in Macao,with a total number of 145 students.Mixed-methods approach(questionnaires and interviews)is employed in the study.Findings:The respondents’participation in English tutoring is not very intensive.They prefer to receive government-subsidized after-school tutoring taught by their schoolteachers more than feepaying English tutoring taught by tutors outside.Low level of social competition and high tertiary enrollment rates contribute to this phenomenon.Students’needs and beliefs in English learning play key roles in determining their receipt of English tutoring.Originality/Value:Teachers may need better understanding of their students’needs so as to design suitable pedagogies.Schools can consider more fully the types of tutoring that they provide for different kinds of pupils.The government-subsidized after-school tutoring could be a plausible way to reduce educational inequality.

How to Get Out of the Prisoners'Dilemma:Educational Resource Allocation and Private Tutoring

This paper analyzes the behavior of families in China regarding private tutoring,applying game theory to its discussion of their actions.It finds that families will definitely give their children private tutoring after school in order to obtain better educational opportunities in situations where the distribution of educational resources is uneven.According to game theory,overuse of private tutoring after school will waste societal resources and negatively affect all the players in the game.It is argued that a key strategy to reduce private tutoring after school is to close the gaps in state provision of education.

Market-Making Practices of Private Tutoring in Finland:Commercialization of Exam Preparation for Admission to Higher Education

Purpose:This study focuses on courses that prepare applicants for universities’highly competitive entrance examinations in Finland.The analysis clarifies the market-making practices and the construction of this field.Design/Approach/Methods:To understand these processes,we useÇalişkan and Callon’s five framings for studying marketization as a heuristic framework.In our analysis,we combine different data sets,including data on course provision,thematic interviews,documents,and ethnographic notes.Findings:In this article,we argue that the preparatory course markets in Finland are an example of private tutoring which operates in the privacy of the university applicants’exam preparation process,thus commercializing this process.The market making of this type of private tutoring is an assemblage of a variety of agents that interact in parallel with each other.Originality/Value:This study aims to contribute to the systemic understanding of the assemblage of private tutoring markets in an equality-focused Nordic country by providing new heuristic lenses from economic sociology through which to view private tutoring.

The Private Tutoring Industry in Denmark: Market Making and Modes of Moral Justification

Purpose:The article focuses on the emergence of a private tutoring industry in Denmark over the last decade. Specifically, it explores how private tutoring companies legitimize themselves in a social and cultural context where education has for long predominantly been understood in egalitarian terms.Design/Approach/Methods:The article takes inspiration from Viviana Zelizer’s work on morally controversial markets. It explores the “moral labor” performed by private tutoring companies to redefine the exchange of private tutoring services as a socially wholesome activity. It does so through a close analysis of business information, company websites, and news media articles on private tutoring.Findings:The article argues that, generally, the marketing material of tutoring companies focuses more on social equality and student well-being than on academic success. Thus, the companies predominantly legitimize themselves in terms of long-standing Scandinavian ideals of education. Increasingly, these are also the terms in which the companies criticize mainstream schooling.Originality/Value:The article contributes new knowledge of private tutoring in a Scandinavian context where very little research on the issue has so far been conducted. Theoretically, it relates previous research on “legitimation projects” of private tutoring companies to broader sociological theories on market making.

Regulating Private Tutoring in China:Uniform Policies,Diverse Responses

Purpose:This article examines responses from the tutoring sector to Chinese national and local government regulations on private supplementary tutoring.It adds to the literature on policy enactment,showing the importance of context and noting the diversity of tutoring providers compared with schools.Design/Approach/Methods:The article draws on semi-structured and informal interviews with 11 tutors,15 managers of tutoring enterprises,5 members and managers of professional organizations,5 government officials,5 school managers,5 teachers,and 20 parents.Data from interviewees were triangulated with observations,news reports,blogs written by tutoring analysts,and ad hoc research by industrial observers.Findings:Policy enactment in the tutoring sector is even more complex than that for schooling.Standardized policies do not necessarily achieve the aspired goals.Originality/Value:The article adds to the literature not only in China but also internationally.It highlights the importance of distinguishing between aspirations and realities in this domain.It also proposes conceptual considerations for regulating tutoring,given its diverse and fluid nature.

“They Would Do Just Fine Without Me”:Experiences of Private Tutoring in Denmark

Purpose:Building on a qualitative case study of parents and tutors previously involved with a large commercial tutoring company,this article investigates experiences of private tutoring in Denmark.Design/Approach/Methods:The case study centers around an affective analysis of eight interviews—three parents and five tutors—centering on why and how the interlocutors decided to hire services from or work for the tutoring company.Findings:The article illustrates how the parents’and tutors’experiences of private tutoring are colored by a series of affective patterns that set the tone for how the parents and tutors make sense of and feel about the phenomenon.Three patterns are drawn forth which together sustain the“mood”in which the parents and tutors encounter the tutoring phenomenon:teacher intimacy,institutional professionalism,and nonexclusivity.Originality/Value:The article provides an empirically grounded perspective on the stakes of commercializing education in spaces characterized by egalitarian ideals in education.

Researching Forms of Shadow Education:Methodological Challenges and Complexities of Private Supplementary Tutoring in Myanmar

Purpose:The growing literature on private supplementary tutoring,widely known as shadow education,addresses multiple dimensions and roles.However,many studies inadequately capture the diversity and implications of different forms of tutoring.This paper examines these matters in Myanmar,highlighting complexities and ambiguities in descriptors and in the nature of provision.Design/Approach/Methods:Using a mixed-methods design,this study was conducted in Mandalay Region and Chin State.The data were obtained from interviews with I10 Grade II students,34 high school teachers,30 parents,29 private tutoring providers,and two private school owners.Findings:The article categorizes tutoring forms based on their styles and orientations,particularly lecture-type teaching and homework supervision by guides,class sizes,durations of fee-charging(e.g,annually),the number of subjects taught per tutor,and tutoring locations.The study brings the topic out of the shadows for clearer analysis of the phenomenon and thus for assessment of its implications.OriginalityNalue:The study makes a methodological contribution to the wider picture by demonstrating the need for greater clarity and precision in the national and international comparative literatures.It also underscores shortcomings of predetermined categories in questionnaires and the value of qualitative interviews.

Review of Regulatory Policies on Private Supplementary Tutoring in China

The present paper focuses on the regulations on private supplementary tutoring,which in China is widely called Xiaowai Peixun(校外培训).Although much previous international literature has mostly focused on tutoring in academic subjects,tutoring in non-academic ones such as piano and painting has become popular in China and is also seen as educational investment by families.To fit this context,the present paper adopts a definition of private tutoring covering tutoring in both academic and non-academic subjects.

A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis of Parental Factors Underlying the Demand for Private Supplementary Tutoring in China

Purpose:Private supplementary tutoring has been increasingly used by parents as part of wider strategies to assist their children’s education careers in China.With a theoretical lens of parentocracy,this article aimed to investigate the influential parental factors underlying the demand for private tutoring,focusing on parents’socioeconomic resources and attitudes toward education.Design/Approach/Methods:This article drew upon data from the 2014 iteration of the China Family Panel Studies.Structural equation modeling(SEM)analysis was employed to explore the influences of parental factors.Findings:The SEM analysis confirmed that parental income,education,and aspirations on children’s education had both direct and indirect positive effects through the mediating factor of role construction on demand for tutoring.A multiple-group analysis was further conducted,and the difference in the patterns for urban and rural parents was explored.Parental occupation had no impact on demand for tutoring for rural parents but had both direct and indirect effects for urban parents.Both direct and indirect effects of household income on demand for tutoring were greater for urban parents than for rural parents.Originality/Value:This article examined the direct and indirect influences of parental factors on demand for private tutoring and explored the differences in patterns for urban and rural parents in a quantitative way.Findings have implications for education inequality.

The Tutoring Industry in Hong Kong:From the Past Four Decades to the Future

Purpose:This article sheds light on the historical changes in the tutoring industry and discusses the nature and driving forces of tutoring in the Hong Kong context.Based on the historical overview,this article introduces new developments in tutoring and discusses how tutoring fits into the bigger education picture.Design/Approach/Methods:Private tutoring in Hong Kong saw its takeoff in business in the 1980s,when the economy started to boom and parents were more willing to spend money on their children’s education.These parents hoped that their children,by receiving university education,could improve their families’lives and secure a brighter future.Public examinations were used as a screening tool to select the cream of the crop for university admissions.Therefore,for many local mainstream school students,passing the public examinations with flying colors became the be-all and end-all of their studies.Tutorial schools regarded their fears as an opportunity and devised courses to suit their needs and allay their fears.Findings:More recently,educational reform,declining birth rate,and technological advances have brought challenges for tutoring businesses.They have explored new markets and changed the mode of operation to increase student intake and cut costs.It is expected that local tutorial schools,in particular the big tutorial-school chains,will providemore online courses for learners fromearly childhood to adult and will reduce the number and scale of off-line courses.Also,we may see a new kind of“star”tutors catering not to local mainstream school students but to their local international school counterparts.Originality/Value:Literature on tutoring in Hong Kong mainly investigates the phenomenon in recent times,specifically the past two decades.This article is the first attempt to draw a holistic picture of tutoring’s historical development from an industrial perspective.

Explorations in Teaching Research by a Tutoring Institution in China

Purpose:This article focuses on rarely explored organizational practice of teaching research in China’s private tutoring industry.Taking a large private tutoring institution as an example,the article examines how private tutoring institutions understand and engage in educational explorations of standardization and informatization processes.Design/Approach/Methods:The article is based on a case study of one of the biggest tutoring companies in China.The study started with document analysis of the institutional history,supplemented by interviews with personnel who have worked in the institution since it was founded.Next,the researchers collected empirical data using mixed methods.Quantitative data were obtained from the user database owned by the institution.Qualitative data were collected directly by the researchers through interviews and participant observation.Both qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed from multiple perspectives.Findings:Teaching research in private tutoring institutions commonly differs from that in public schooling.In this particular case,it is technology-driven,student-tailored,and processstandardized.Utilized well,it can supplement the mainstream public education system and promote education innovation and equity throughout the country.Originality/Value:It is hoped that this article could give some insights into the possibility of the cooperation between formal schools and tutoring institutions in the areas of teaching research and other in-class and off-campus activities.The article can also draw public attention to the necessity and benefits of adopting technical methods in the teaching process.

Shadow Education in Europe: Growing Prevalence, Underlying Forces, and Policy Implications

Purpose:Private supplementary tutoring,widely known as shadow education,has long been visible in East Asia,and now has spread to other parts of the world including Europe.This article maps the phenomenon,showing variations within Europe and analyzing its growth,underlying forces,and policy implications.Design/Approach/Methods:The article assembles a regional picture from available national sources.It focuses on the 28 members of the European Union.Findings:Within Europe,four subregions may be identified.Most prominent for the longest duration has been Southern Europe,pushed by political forces and cultural factors.In Eastern Europe,shadow education became prominent following the collapse of the Soviet Union and accompanying economic and social structures during which teachers and others had to earn extra incomes.In Western Europe,the advent of marketization alongside government schooling has fueled the growth of shadow education.Only in Northern Europe does shadow education remain modest in scale,but it is growing there too.Originality/Value:The article identifies forces underlying the growth of shadow education in Europe and highlights policy implications.By contributing this regional perspective to the wider literature on shadow education,the article permits juxtaposition with patterns in East Asia and elsewhere.

The Rise of Supplementary Education in Sweden:Arguments,Thought Styles,and Policy Enactment

Purpose:This article focuses on the development of supplementary education,evolving under the label“homework support,”in Sweden between 2006 and 2018.Particular attention is paid to the significance of the private market for national policy.Design/Approach/Methods:Through a theoretical model on policy enactment,the interaction between national policy and local practice is highlighted.By analyzing how the local practice appears in documents related to state-regulated decision-making,the study gains further insights in the development of homework support in Sweden.Findings:This article argues that when private companies,offering supplementary tutoring,were established on the outskirts of the educational landscape in Sweden,the political educational discourse changed.Even though homework support became a given part of the political discussion about the school,the situation became difficult for private companies.Originality/Value:The article adds to the international field of shadow education.It describes the establishment of the private tutoring market’s entry into the Swedish educational landscape,which in the long term has provided a basis for a further Scandinavian development.Furthermore,the article contributes to theory development by a model that focuses on the interaction between policy formulation and local enactment.

Modes and Trajectories of Shadow Education in Denmark and China:Fieldwork Reflections by a Comparativist

Purpose In the domain of shadow education(private supplementary tutoring),Denmark and China may be placed at opposite ends of a spectrum.Denmark has a recently emerged,small,and high-cost sector that mostly serves low achievers,while China has a more industrialized sector with a long history and economies of scale.The paper juxtaposes the two to shed light on each.Design/Approach/Methods The article is a personal narrative of the author's research experiences.She grew up and had initial education in China before moving to the Nordic realm for 2 years.This provided a set of initial lenses,which were subsequently deployed in research partnership from her current base in China with colleagues in Denmark.Findings The juxtaposition raises questions that might otherwise not have been asked and provides insights that might otherwise not have been gained.Danish families hesitate to use shadow education for advantages in the egalitarian society,in contrast to Chinese patterns that stress competition and achievement.These facets have implications for the modes of shadow education and even the names of tutorial companies.Originality/Value The paper has a methodological value in addition to its substantive insights on the trajectories of shadow education in the two countries.

Learning,Teaching,and Researching in Shadow Education in Hong Kong:An Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry

Purpose:This article aims to illustrate from the author’s insider perspective the lived experiences of engaging in private tutoring in Hong Kong as a tutee,a tutor,and a researcher and draw implications on several issues arising from the prevalence of shadow education.Design/Approach/Methods:This article adopted an autobiographical narrative approach.Data were collected through the author’s memoir of events,stimulated by the tutorial materials he used when he was a tutee and a tutor,his own video-recorded lessons of tutoring,and reflective journals from his research projects.Findings:Various issues are discussed based on the narrative of the author playing different roles in the tutoring industry,including(1)the positive and negative washback on mainstream education,(2)the lack of strict regulation of the quality of tutors and advertisements,and(3)how shadow education may exacerbate education inequality and how some tutorial companies and nonprofit organizations are addressing the issue.Originality/Value:This article,to the best of the author’s knowledge,is the only one that discusses the issues of shadow education from an author’s own personal experiences as a tutee,a tutor,and a researcher.It illustrates how practices and policies of the private tutoring industry are evolving in Hong Kong from an insider perspective.