Chapter 6: Into the Light: The Expansion and Institutionalization of Shadow Education

For several decades, researchers have been describing and theorizing the international rise and growth of “shadow education,” the collection of supplemental learning from coaching centers to private tutoring aimed at improving performance in formal schools. This chapter reviews major themes in the literature on shadow education before suggesting how neo-institutionalist theories can help interpret future trends. One major theme is the expanding presence of the sector. Supplemental education has massive economic impacts but also shapes people’s social capital and use of time. Meanwhile, formal schooling is reflexively reshaped by shadow education, even redefining teachers’ work. A second theme concerns effects on societal stratification. Some have argued that private educational services are used by the well-off to consolidate advantages while other evidence suggests that disadvantaged families use supplemental education as they search for prosperity. A third theme concerns different regulatory responses, ranging from outright bans to active encouragement, as governments reckon with effects on formal state-sanctioned schooling. This chapter concludes by arguing that the metaphor of the shadow no longer applies; the sector is in many ways becoming indistinguishable from, and at times overshadows, formal education. Shadow education has become globally institutionalized, the latest element in an intensifying schooled society.