Studies of parental involvement and children’s education in a variety of contexts can provide valuable insights into how the relationships between parental involvement and student outcomes depend upon specific local contexts of family and education. Korean education is distinctive with its high prevalence of private tutoring, which not only imposes an economic burden on parents but also requires parents’ time and efforts to select the best kind of private tutoring for their children and to keep track of their academic progress by interacting with private tutors. Here, data from a longitudinal survey in Korea that has traced 7th-graders for two years were used to investigate the determinants and the effects of parents’ private tutoring–related activities in comparison to other types of home-based and school-based parental involvement. Multivariate analysis shows that parents’ efforts in selecting and monitoring private tutoring are significantly associated with increased math and English test scores. Featu...

Parental Involvement and Students’ Cognitive Outcomes in Korea: Focusing on Private Tutoring

The book can be downloaded for free on the website of Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong. https://cerc.edu.hku.hk/books-category/cerc-monograph-series/

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Shadow Education: Private Supplementary Tutoring and Its Implications for Policy Makers in Asia

Confronting the Shadow Education System: What Government Policies for What Private Tutoring? (Korean Translation)

Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study, this study assessed the relevance of shadow education to the high academic performance of East Asian American students by examining how East Asian American students differed from other racial/ethnic students in the prevalence, purpose, and effects of using the two forms - commercial test preparation service and private one-to-one tutoring - of SAT coaching, defined as the American style of shadow education. East Asian American students were most likely to take a commercial SAT test preparation course for the enrichment purpose, and benefited most from taking this particular form of SAT coaching. However, this was not the case for private SAT one-to-one tutoring. While black students were most likely to utilize private tutoring for the remedial purpose, the impact of private tutoring was trivial for all racial/ethnic groups including East Asian American students. The authors discussed broader implications of the findings on racial/ethnic inequalities in educational achievement beyond the relevance of shadow education for the academic success of East Asian American students.

The Academic Success of East Asian American Youth The Role of Shadow Education

The features of Korean higher education development are related to sociocultural tradition (Confucian tradition), the model university ideas, and economic development in Korea. The modern university ideas adopted in Korean are based on the German model which was established by the Japanese colonial government and drawing on the US university model after the World War II. However, the modern university ideas are intertwined with socio-cultural factors and have been embedded in current Korean universities. As well as the western ideas and the Confucian tradition, the growth of Korean higher education has relied upon the rapid growth of the Korean economy. Education development is well aligned with economic development in Korea thanks to government policy initiatives. This framework can be applied in the analysis of higher education development in other countries. Higher education development cannot be solely explained by individual cultural, historical or economic factor. These three factors are interlinked and influence the development of Korean higher education.

Higher education development in Korea: western university ideas, Confucian tradition, and economic development

Shadow education has been a challenge to public education in South Korea since the 1960s. Government has responded to shadow education with various types of policy responses. The assumption on the possibility of reducing the demand mechanism led the policy to eliminate competitive high stakes examinations and even prohibit participating in shadow education. However, the policy response with this assumption has not been effective. The policy responses to the problematic symptoms had been short period prescription, which were able to bring about immediate effects. South Korean experiences suggest that we need to formulate long-term policy frameworks for developing the quality of public education in responding to shadow education.

The history of policy responses to shadow education in South Korea: implications for the next cycle of policy responses

Private supplementary tutoring, or shadow education, has 
long been a major phenomenon in parts of East Asia, including Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. In 
recent times, shadow education has been rapidly increasing 
in other Asian countries as well, as it has in Europe and 
North America. Traditionally, private supplementary tutoring has been a neglected topic in research, though there has 
been much more research in recent years. A growing body 
of literature focuses on the shadow education system of 
private supplementary tutoring, which occurs in academic 
subjects beyond the hours of mainstream formal schooling (Bray, 1999, 2003; Kwok, 2004; Silova & Bray, 2006; 
Yoo, 2002).

Heesook Lee

Papers

The history of policy responses to shadow education in South Korea: implications for the next cycle of policy responses

Shadow Education Systems