Foreword

Citation (2013), "Foreword", Out of the Shadows: The Global Intensification of Supplementary Education (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 22), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. xi-xiv. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2013)0000022024 Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited Copyright © 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited The supplementary education phenomenon is simultaneously both familiar and mysterious. The term “shadow education” first captured this blend of mystery and familiarity in a way that resonated with many researchers worldwide. As Janice Aurini, Scott Davies, and Julian Dierkes assert in this coedited volume, the phenomenon is much bigger (and perhaps even more menacing) that what researchers first found lurking in the shadows. This volume on supplementary education worldwide is a strong fit for the International Perspectives on Education and Society series because it relies upon the fact that internationally comparative research on education addresses many diverse global problems and topics. Some of these are cross-national in scope, while others are uniquely situated in particular cultures and communities. Few, however, encompass as much diversity in scope, theory, and method as Aurini, Davies, and Dierkes’s volume on supplementary education. The worldwide expansion of mass education has been documented and debated as one of the foremost issues in comparative and international education research in the 20th century, but the expansion and institutionalization of supplementary education promises to usurp mass education as the most important (and still among the least understood) education phenomena of the 21st century. In short, this supplementary education volume is both greatly needed and long overdue. An essential function of the International Perspectives on Education and Society series is to present new research on and syntheses of comparative and international education research as well as to provide conceptual and methodological frameworks to help make sense of the research and its application. The contribution of this volume on supplementary education to research in the field of comparative and international education is great. For instance, this volume addresses the distinguishing as well as overlapping characteristics of supplementary education, shadow education, and private tutoring within unique cultural contexts and across traditional boundaries. Clarifying supplementary education-related terms and their meanings is crucial to the research endeavor because how the phenomenon is discussed and debated relies upon what each of these concepts encompasses and where these concepts may be limited. Volumes in the International Perspectives on Education and Society series address phenomena, which either reveal or result in significant change in both education and society. For example, all the chapters in this volume address – either directly or indirectly – the rapid and massive global expansion of supplementary education as both a phenomenon and as an industry. As Aurini, Davies, and Dierkes suggest in their introduction to the volume, supplementary education is a “monster of an industry,” but it is also important to recognize that supplementary education is not a single corporation or unified entity. It is still a largely uncoordinated global process; it is a structure; it is a set of assumptions about education and society – all of which intersect in particular activities and organize around specific expectations that we then call supplementary education broadly speaking. The International Perspectives on Education and Society series also provides an opportunity for critical analysis of research in the field of comparative and international education itself, which is often neglected in the periodical research literature. For example, even though single country or case studies of private tutoring are becoming frequent in the published research in comparative and international education, truly internationally comparative research on supplementary education is still hard to find. Even most of the chapters in this volume are not internationally comparative in scope, but rather single country studies. Balancing both global and local research of supplementary education, therefore, is important to moving research on this phenomenon forward and addressing the many layers of context in which supplementary education occurs. The work by Mark Bray has left an indelible mark on research related to private tutoring, which is a significant area of study within the broader scope of supplementary and shadow education. Still, cross-nationally comparative research on supplementary education is still hard to find compared to the plethora of single case or country studies on the topic. The advent and availability of international educational assessment and survey data, however, has made cross-nationally comparable data on education available for research on supplementary education. For example, my own introduction to shadow education came through the early work on shadow education by David P. Baker. Stevenson and Baker’s (1992) work on shadow education in Japan was first introduced to me as a graduate student and emphasized the single country focus of research on supplementary education, which still dominates research on supplementary education in the early 21st century. Later I had the opportunity to work on some cross-nationally comparative work on shadow education myself using international survey data (Baker, Akiba, LeTendre, & Wiseman, 2001), which brought the phenomenon into stark contrast across multiple educational systems and societies. Many others in the field have had similar experiences. Shadow education and private tutoring have become high profile phenomenon in comparative and international education research, which means that most graduate students and researchers in comparative and international education and many related social science disciplines are familiar with it. As the phenomenon of supplementary education expands worldwide, many more will have had firsthand experience participating in either after-school programs, private tutoring, juku, cram schools, learning centers, or another type of supplementary education. As a result, researchers have a unique opportunity with the wide practice of supplementary education worldwide to combine personal experience, single case or country study, and cross-nationally comparative data to provide almost a 360-degree view of supplementary education. Aurini, Davies, and Dierkes’s volume pushes the research on supplementary education in this direction. Finally, each volume in the International Perspectives on Education and Society series offers an overview and critical examination of a problem, issue, or topic in comparative and international education. This volume does this in part by highlighting how research investigations into supplementary education (often discussed as shadow education, and more frequently private tutoring) have expanded almost as rapidly as the phenomenon itself. The research agenda that Aurini, Davies, and Dierkes move forward in this volume has come from its beginnings as a unique and heavily theorized topic related to “extra lessons” and educational activities that mimic formal schooling outside of schools, which few researchers were making their main focus in the 1990s, to the massive multinational research projects that focus exclusively on private tutoring and are funded by major educational and development organizations in the 21st century. In a way, research on private tutoring has become institutionalized itself over the past 20 years, and Aurini, Davies, and Dierkes’s volume has come along at just the right time to rattle the iron cage of supplementary education both to reframe the discourse and to question and build on the research that has come before. Alexander W. Wiseman Series Editor References Baker, Akiba, LeTendre, & Wiseman (2001) Baker, D. P. , Akiba, M. , LeTendre, G. K. , & Wiseman, A. W. (2001). Worldwide shadow education: Outside-school learning, institutional quality of schooling, and cross-national mathematics achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(1), 1–17. Stevenson & Baker (1992) Stevenson, D. L. , & Baker, D. P. (1992). Shadow education and allocation in formal schooling: Transition to university in Japan. American Journal of Sociology, 97(6), 1639–1657. Book Chapters Out of the shadows: The global intensification of supplementary education International perspectives on education and society Out of the shadows: The global intensification of supplementary education Copyright page List of contributors Foreword Out of the shadows? An introduction to worldwide supplementary education The insecurity industry: Supplementary education in Japan Supplementary education in turkey: Recent developments and future prospects Researching supplementary education: Plans, realities, and lessons from fieldwork in china Private tutoring in vietnam: A review of current issues and its major correlates Supplementary education in brazil: Diversity and paradoxes Supplementary education in a changing organizational field: The canadian case But did it help you get to university? A qualitative study of supplementary education in western australia Supplementary education in the United States: Policy context, characteristics, and challenges Supplementary education in germany: History and present developments Making markets: Policy construction of supplementary education in the united states and korea Family capital: A determinant of supplementary education in 17 nations About the authors

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