Japan has a longstanding history of shadow education, which has evolved, transformed, and extended beyond its borders. Japanese shadow education institutions, known as "juku," have expanded worldwide, including in Asia, the US, and Europe, offering offline and online tutoring services mainly for Japanese expatriates. This study examines…

This paper presents empirical evidence on kindergarten admission preparation services in Hong Kong. Parents increasingly turn to tutoring companies for a range of services, such as social skills training, portfolio editing, mock interviews, and parental consultation. We used qualitative methods to capture the views of parents, teachers, tutors,…

Private tutoring, or shadow education, has become a widespread phenomenon globally. Its growth can be attributed to the expansion of cram schools offering live and video tutoring. This study critically analyses students' perceptions of video-recorded classes. Specifically, it problematises students' preference for video-recorded classes by…

A growing literature, much of it with cross-national comparisons, employs geographic lenses to secure insights into educational studies. Most of this literature focuses on schooling, though parts address kindergartens and higher education. The present paper, by contrast, employs geographic lenses to focus on the shadow education system of private…

Based on the educational hierarchical reproduction theory and the MMI and EMI hypotheses, this paper discusses the impact of the tracking of general and vocational education at the secondary level on higher education opportunity equity among social classes. The study finds that increasing gross enrollment rates of both general high schools and…

The aim of this study is to investigate the reasons for academic stress in Hong Kong and provide recommendations to the government on ways to alleviate this problem. Using photovoice, 15 undergraduate students from a private community college in Hong Kong were invited to take and discuss photographs regarding their lived experiences of learning.…

It is becoming more common for students in Hong Kong to take extra lessons after school. Several surveys indicate that more than 70% of students need to take private tutoring classes after school in their final year of secondary school (Bray, 2013). This indicates that "shadow education" has become a trend in Hong Kong. There are…

Success in mathematics has been shown to increase career opportunities; thus, improving student learning in mathematics is vital for educational policymakers. This study investigated the effects of five parental involvement variables on young children's mathematical achievements in 10 countries, including seven Arab countries, and found…

The shift from meritocracy to parentocracy in contemporary societies has resulted in a situation where children's educational success increasingly depends on parents' wealth and wishes rather than children's ability and efforts. Better-off parents can afford extra learning activities to increase children's competitive edge. This phenomenon is…

This paper explores how parents in Hong Kong perceive the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of academic and non-academic private tutoring (PT) for their children, using a thematic analysis of interviews with 80 parents from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. We seek to understand the role of PT in parents' thinking about their…

Private tutoring is one of the unintended outcomes of high-stakes testing and has become a widespread global phenomenon. It is called shadow education because it mimics the mainstream curriculum. From the critical perspective, this study investigated the role of private tutoring in a context of high-stakes testing through Interpretative…

With a focus on the neglected 'L2 learning experience' component in Dörnyei's L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), this study investigated secondary students' L2 motivation in the context of online English private tutoring (EPT). Through narrative inquiry, students narrated their EPT experience online and reflected on it in comparison with that in…

Private tutoring has become a widespread phenomenon worldwide, partly due to the global trend of marketisation and commodification of education. Informed by a discursive view of identity and through multimodal discourse analysis, this study aims to unveil part of the shadow education discourse by investigating the identities of 41 English language…

With the aim to provide proper educational support for socially and economically deprived students, the present study examined a homework tutoring programme that focused on self-regulated learning (SRL) and implemented at an afterschool setting in Hong Kong. The programme was designed according to Zimmerman's SRL model, integrated explicit and…

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:…