ABSTRACT

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.

摘要

越来越多的研究表明，课外辅导是一种全球普遍存在的现象。定义补习规定的一种常见方式是使用“影子教育”这个比喻，表示补习中心“影子”正规学校。尽管这个比喻在该领域很流行，但“影子”是如何作为一个过程发生的，以及这个过程对正规学校教育和社会有什么影响，却很少经过实证审查。为了弥补文献中的这一差距，本文利用了 2014-15 年间台拉登（印度）学校教育民族志产生的数据。关于私人补习的制度安排与正规学校教育的制度安排相一致的具体方式的讨论揭示了印度主流学校教育经验中私人补习的社会教育嵌入性。文章认为，“影子”不是一个中立的过程，它是在战术和战略上执行的，目的是在日益市场化的教育部门中为私人补习提供有价值的、合法的和有竞争力的空间。重要的是，这种对“影子”的分析揭示了正规学校教育中存在问题的做法，并表明通过在其结构中反映这些做法，私人补习再现了社会不平等。本文提供的理解“影子过程”的见解可能对分析印度和其他社会辅导企业的组织安排具有价值。通过证明辅导是日常学校教育的一部分，本文证明了将其视为印度主流教育不可或缺的一部分。