Theorizing Shadow Education and Academic Success in East Asia

Understanding the Meaning, Value, and Use of Shadow Education by East Asian Students

Young Chun Kim, Jung-Hoon Jung

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000409895
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Comparative Education

This volume tackles perceived myths surrounding the academic excellence of East Asian students, and moves beyond Western understanding to offer in-depth analysis of the crucial role that shadow education plays in students' academic success.

Featuring a broad range of contributions from countries including Japan, China, Taiwan, and Singapore, chapters draw on rich qualitative research to place in the foreground the lived experiences of students, teachers, and parents in East Asian countries. In doing so, the text provides indigenous insights into the uses, values, and meanings of shadow education and highlights unknown cultural and regional aspects, as well as related phenomena including trans-boundary learning culture, nomadic learning, individualized learning, and the post-schooling era. Ultimately challenging the previously dominating Western perspective on shadow education, the volume offers innovative theorization to highlight shadow education as a phenomenon which cannot be overlooked in broader discussion of East Asian educational performance, systems, and policy.

Offering pioneering insights into the growing phenomenon of shadow education, this text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in international and comparative education, curriculum studies, and East Asian educational practices and policy. Those interested in the sociology of education and educational policy will also benefit from this book.

Part I

Shadow Education, Trans-boundary Learning Culture, and Academic Success

1Shadow Education Studies as Post-Truth Discourse

Ruins of Tradition and Theorizing Academic Success with “Learning Capital”

Young Chun Kim and Jung-Hoon Jung

Research about shadow education has advanced over the past three decades, with the exception of particular research ideas and approaches that have stagnated. To facilitate progression in these areas, the “epistemic justification” that is guiding “truth” about shadow education needs to be reconstructed (Peters, 2017, p. 565). Our discussion needs to assess the post-truth era wherein “truth” is often determined by the emotions, beliefs, and inertia of research approaches. The notion of post-truth is useful for our discussion because many researchers, parents, and policymakers assess shadow education based on their emotions and their desire to prioritize public education at the expense of empirical analysis. We use the notion of post-truth discourse since the existing field of shadow education lacks consideration of counter-narratives, counter-evidence, differing methodologies, and cultural knowledge that could lead to a better understanding of the discourse. By applying the post-truth concept to the existing shadow education discourse, we aim to problematize the inaccurate, misguided, and/or culturally misrepresentative understandings of local shadow education practices. In this chapter, we hope to provide balanced research perspectives that will change how future research about shadow education is framed and conducted. Informed by postmodern and postcolonial perspectives, we first analyze the limitations of existing shadow education research. Through an extensive literature review, we critique the dominant shadow education discourse in terms of philosophical underpinnings, research methodologies, research topics, and researchers’ perceptions about shadow education. Next, we explore emerging – and relatively under-recognized – research about shadow education and how it affects students and their academic success. Finally, we build on critiques and new ideas to develop the new concept of learning capital, which scholars can apply in new theories to help clarify academic success among students.

Working in Ruins: Critical Review of Shadow Education Studies

Walter Benjamin’s unique dialectical thinking invokes us to reconstruct the fossilized images of culture through an allegorical investigation of ruins. For Benjamin, the term “ruins” does not refer to merely petrified objects or images. Instead, it “mark[s] the fragility of power and the force of destruction” and also refers to “sites that condense an alternative sense of history” (Stoler, 2008, p. 194). In Benjamin’s method of allegory, ruins provide what is left, what did not get attention, what is silenced, and what is hidden. Consequently, we first allegorically reconstruct the existing discourse of shadow education to sort out the “rubble” (Stead, 2003). To initiate this colossal task, we first critically examine the predominant ruins of the discourse on shadow education.

First, shadow education has been marginalized and decentered. On the contrary, public education is centered, conceived as legitimate, and is normal. From the perspective of modernism, the center is valued, desirable, and normal, while what is decentered is not valuable, undesirable, and abnormal. Such a view has been strongly criticized as postmodernism by epistemological and philosophical approaches in social science (Doherty, Graham, & Malek, 1992; Hollinger, 1994), and educational research (St. Pierre, 2000; Rikowski & McLaren, 2002). From the perspective of postmodernism, modernity’s belief that the existing center is legitimate and neutral is problematic. Instead, postmodern epistemology supports that knowledge, truth, and validity are all value-laden (Lather, 1991; Doll, 1993). Additionally, postmodernism rejects modernity’s binary thinking, which divides entities into good/bad, relevant/irrelevant, centered/marginalized, superior/inferior, subject/other, based on the dualistic criteria in various issues such as gender, race, sexual orientation, and religion.

Shadow education has almost always been defined as abnormal, bad, and undesirable, and thus was marginalized and decentered. This thesis would be accepted if we review the traditional approaches of shadow education since its inception. Rather than trying to understand the genuine and valuable aspects of its contribution, shadow education has been defined and interpreted as abnormal and harmful for the entire educational environment. From its inception, the concept, denoting unsavory characteristics (Bray, 2007), emphasizes a subordinate status in comparison to public education. To make matters worse, shadow education has often been expressed in various terms, namely “educational arms race” (Halliday, 2016, p. 150), “excessive competition” (Bray, 2007. p. 72), “being drilled to death” and “extra cramming” (Takayama, 2017, p. 265), “education fever” (Seth, 2002), and “hell” and “war” (Watanabe, 2013, p. 3). Arguably, the strongest critics make a rather bold claim, calling it the “evils of private tuition” (Foondun, 2002, p. 509) and “invasive species” (Bray & Kobakhidze, 2015, p. 476). Such is the legacy of modernity that, as Foucault (1997) critiques, is obsessed with a particular episteme. Under the regime of modernity, public education gains power as modernity ignores the value of revealing differences (Derrida, 1972). Besides, the modernity regime that prioritizes public education has built an antagonistic relation between shadow education and public education. Why/who gave such a sacred status to public education?

Nonetheless, the relation evident today is not “natural,” which means that it only comprises certain thoughts and the situation could have been otherwise. We use “relation” from the perspectives of Peirce (1992) that refer to “habits of thoughts, associations that organize and order thoughts in particular ways” (Trueit & Doll, 2010, p. 176). Thereon, the relationship between shadow education and public education is exemplified by the habit of thoughts which is obsessed with modernity. Due to the constructed images that disregard shadow education, researchers typically do not pursue the other sides of this phenomenon. Thus, shadow education is “grossly under-researched” (Davis, 2013, p. 1), compared to public education (Ozaki, 2015; Zhang & Xie, 2016; Kim & Jung, 2019) The fixed negative images of shadow education and the dualistic and antagonistic relation between the two different educational spaces should be probed.

Second, shadow education is perceived as non-educational by researchers who value Western educational philosophies emphasizing natural development and progressive education. Such judgments on shadow education align with the long tradition of John Dewey, Howard Gardner, and even Pasi Sahlberg. Western perspectives accentuate child over subject, experience over knowledge, self-directed learning over tight-guidance, trial and error over training and drilling. From the educational philosophical stance, shadow education, which emphasizes mastering knowledge, rigorous training, and tight guidance, has been mistaken as an undesirable practice. In favor of this progressive education, scholars both in the West and in the East considered shadow education analogous to schools focused on cramming and rote learning (Seth, 2002; Watanabe, 2013). Such a stance is frequently witnessed, as “cramming” is frequently used to refer to shadow education practices. The definition of cramming stated by Merriam-Webster includes “to thrust in or as if in a rough or forceful manner” and “to prepare hastily for an examination” (Merriam-Webster, 2020). This terminology indicates that shadow education constitutes practices that are used with students against their will. Admittedly, shadow education has exhibited certain forms and practices of cramming. Yet, this is only one of the many aspects of shadow education, as we provide others in the next section.

The mission of progressive educational philosophies has received enormous appreciation from East Asian scholars. Zhixin Su (1995, p. 315) argues that John Dewey, during his visit to China between 1919 and 1921, “encouraged the Chinese people to break away from the harmful elements in the old tradition and helped Chinese education to develop toward a new stage.” The ideas valued “education as growing,” “education as life,” “school as society,” “learning by doing.” In fact, Dewey himself received private tutoring from his former professor of philosophy, H. A. P. Torrey, at the University of Vermont (Dykhuizen, 1961). This perspective culminates in Yong Zhao’s (2014) book, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World. In the book, Zhao describes Chinese education as a “pathology” (p. 119), and “an illusion at best and a cruel glorification of authoritarianism at worst” (p. 8). In Japan, yutori kyoiku (education free from pressure) “owes more than a passing debt to Progressivism” (Sower, 2013, p. 1). The reform, Sower (2013, p. 2) argues, “reduced the school week from six days to five and cut the educational requirements by a third,” and, as a consequence, led to a significant decline in academic performance. In these countries, shadow education has often been blamed for “increasing students’” workloads and students’ stress (Kim & Jung, 2019).

Additionally, Sahlberg’s (2011) Finnish Lessons, equipped with a less-is-more approach, reveals Finnish success in the absence of standardization, competition, and accountability, and exhibits the total authority of teachers over curriculum and instruction. The book has been welcomed by education researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in East Asian countries such as South Korea, China, and Japan (Su, 1995; Sower, 2013; Kim, 2016). In Korea, for example, his books were translated into Korean, and Sahlberg gave rounds of lectures in the country, and the public and academia exorbitantly produced articles and books to apply Finnish education, trying to find the secrets with the hope of adopting them. His books also received a lot of attention in Japan and China, which may have added a progressive mission to the already progressive-oriented educational contexts. Under the educational orientation toward Western educational philosophies, negative expressions, such as “rote learning,” “dogmatic,” “pathology,” and “authoritarian,” characterize East Asian education and denigrate their education at the expense of praising the “progressivist mission.” From this perspective, the characteristics of shadow education, such as mastery of subject knowledge through harsh and repetitive training, and close-fitting management of learning have been conceived as the agony of students (Jung, 2016).

Third, the aspect of shadow education as a powerful agency exacerbating educational and social inequality has contributed to the construction of negative images. Accordingly, the research focus was raised and strengthened by relevant researchers. Many argued that shadow education widens the socioeconomic gap in terms of academic achievement and expenses (Anderson & Kohler, 2013; Choi & Park, 2016), and consequently deteriorates educational equality in East Asian countries such as Hong Kong (Bray & Lykins, 2012), India (Pallegedara, 2011), and South Korea (Byun & Kim, 2008). Furthermore, Bray and Kwok (2003) contended that the shadow education industry regenerated social inequality in mainstream education, as familial financial status influences the students’ tutoring participation in Hong Kong. Lei (2005), and Xue and Ding (2009) also claim that the opportunity for a student to receive shadow education is closely related to familial socioeconomic status (SES). Likewise, Bray and Kwo (2014) suggested that the shadow education sector should be sternly regulated for the public good. On top of being blamed for educational inequality, shadow education has been treated as an antagonist of public education and even as a societal evil (Park, Lim, & Choi, 2015; Park et al., 2016). Accordingly, governments and policymakers have instituted policies to regulate, control, and/or eradicate shadow education. The obsession of the researchers regarding how shadow education contributes to strengthening educational inequality has rendered them incapable to decipher different interpretations and other aspects of shadow education, which we will discuss in the next section.

While it is true that shadow education does contribute to exacerbating educational inequality, thereby differentiating students’ learning opportunities, the benefits are rarely discussed. However, recent research has provided different explanations verifying that shadow education may facilitate the reduction of educational inequality. Entrich (2014) concluded that in Japan and Germany, shadow education has a neutralizing effect on the disadvantaged population through the initialization of various educational opportunities. Guill and Bonsen (2011, cited in Bukowski, 2017) revealed that students with a lower family income attended more out-of-school classes than those with a higher family income. In China, Hu, Fan, and Ding (2016, p. 11) argue that “attending supplementary math tutoring may narrow the gap between students in learning performance … thus promoting the equality of e...