Czech Research Group for Shadow Education

Zhu, Y. (2026). At the intersection of policy and digital tools: Boundary work and professional identity among Chinese schoolteachers and shadow-education tutors under the double reduction policy. Teaching and Teacher Education, 183, 105825.

China’s Double Reduction Policy (DRP) restricts private tutoring and expands school-based after-school services. At the same time, digital and AI-supported tools are changing how teachers organise, monitor, and justify their work. These forces are usually studied separately. Based on semi-structured interviews with 24 educators in Sichuan (12 schoolteachers and 12 shadow-education tutors), this reflexive thematic analysis examines how policy and tool-mediated work jointly reshape professional identity through boundary work. The findings show three linked processes. First, DRP makes legitimacy more visibly graded across tenured teachers, non-tenured teachers, and tutors. Second, AI-supported systems and broader digital tools generate different forms of checking, monitoring, and replaceability anxiety. Third, participants use policy language and tool talk to claim legitimacy, compliance, and human judgement under unequal risk exposure. The study contributes to international debates on regulation, digitalisation, and teacher identity.

Kobakhidze, N., & Šťastný, V. (2026). Different contexts, similar mindsets? A comparative study of parental decision-making in private tutoring in Hong Kong and the Czech Republic. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 1-21.

This paper presents a comparative study of parental decision-making in private tutoring in Hong Kong and the Czech Republic, using similar qualitative approaches. It is based on interviews with 145 parents, exploring the factors, criteria, and strategies influencing their choices. The findings reveal both convergences and divergences in parental approaches. Key influences include rational choices, emotions, and cognitive biases, with both groups exhibiting ‘bounded rationality’. Despite differences in geography, culture, and education, the study reveals unexpected similarities, particularly regarding child agency – parents’ involvement of children in decisions about tutoring. The paper critically examines explanations for these trends, emphasising factors beyond culture, such as social class, global parenting images, and social media. It advocates for further research into the global influences shaping parental decisions and how these evolve in a globalised context. The study contributes to the field of shadow education and comparative education, offering new methodological and conceptual insights.

Šťastný, V. (2025). Shadow education: Weakening or strengthening dissatisfied parents’ exit and voice in education? Globalisation, Societies and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2025.2549721

When schools fall short, parents face a choice: demand change, move their child, or quietly adapt. While much research has examined why parents become dissatisfied, little is known about how the availability and use of private tutoring (shadow education) shapes their next steps. This study addresses that gap, drawing on 65 in-depth interviews with Czech parents. Applying the Exit–Voice–Loyalty–Neglect (EVLN) framework, the findings reveal tutoring’s double-edged role. On one side, it cushions the impact of poor schooling – helping students keep up, reducing frustration, and enabling families to remain loyal or passive rather than exiting or voicing concerns. On the other, it can facilitate exit by preparing children for selective transfers, easing adaptation after school change, or substituting for school instruction in home education. In some cases, tutoring even strengthens voice, providing concrete evidence of school shortcomings and amplifying parental complaints. These mechanisms show that shadow education can both perpetuate systemic weaknesses by deflecting pressure for improvement and empower parents to challenge the status quo. The study highlights how structural features – such as early tracking and decentralised curricula – shape whether private tutoring sustains or disrupts institutional inertia, with implications for equity, accountability, and school reform.

Šťastný, V. (2025). ‘If the School Does Not Provide What I Expect, I Have to Supply It From Other Sources’: Czech Parents’ Dissatisfaction as a Driver of Shadow Education. European Journal of Education, 60(1), e70029. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.70029

Shadow education (various forms or types of private supplementary tutoring) and its implications and determinants have been explored by the scholarly literature, yet gaps remain in the understanding of its complex relationships with mainstream schooling in various national settings. This study reduces one of these gaps by scrutinising the role of parental dissatisfaction, exploring which aspects of schooling make dissatisfied parents consider procuring private supplementary tutoring for their children. Data for the qualitative study were gathered through individual, semistructured, in-depth interviews with 65 Czech parents. A maximum-variation sampling strategy was employed to gain insights from parents with different backgrounds and life situations. Parents who sought private tutoring because of their dissatisfaction with schooling listed a large array of school-related causes that triggered their decision. These were related to classroom instruction (e.g., inappropriate curriculum, grade inflation in student assessment), classroom organisation (e.g., unfavourable disciplinary climate and classroom composition), school communication (e.g., late teacher feedback on students’ performance) and general school culture (e.g., unfavourable student–teacher relationships). The study has implications for teachers, schools and relatedly also policymakers by showing how their (in)actions and ignorance towards the quality of the service they offer may nurture the demand for private tutoring, which in turn may undermine their efforts to mitigate educational inequalities.

Šťastný, V., & Nekardová, B. (2025). Proxy involvement of Czech parents in education: Inner tensions and situational burdens behind decisions to buy private tutoring. Cambridge Journal of Education, 55(1), 113–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2025.2451282

While previous research on private tutoring has focused predominantly on its meso- or macro-level determinants, this qualitative study, anchored in the literature on parental involvement, explores proximal factors, including psychological and situational influences, that affect parental decisions to seek private tutoring. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 65 Czech parents, who considered buying or had bought private tutoring for their child. It demonstrates that due to their internalised active parental role, parents feel a strong obligation to intervene when their educational expectations for their children are unmet. Private tutoring is considered when parents cannot or do not want be directly involved because of various barriers. Parents then use private tutoring as a compensatory mechanism, effectively outsourcing their involvement to a proxy: a tutoring provider. This study contributes to existing literature by presenting a conceptual model illustrating the interplay of these proximal factors, which can be further empirically tested.

Šťastný, V. (2024). The expansion and diversity of shadow education: Global perspectives, local contexts. Faculty of Education, Charles University. https://doi.org/10.14712/9788076034433

Zhu, Y. (2024, August 14). “There is Demand, There is a Market”: Implementation of the Prohibitive Chinese Double Reduction Shadow Education Policy—From the Tutors’ Perspective. International Journal of Educational Reform. https://doi.org/10.1177/10567879241268035

Amidst the growing prominence of shadow education (known as supplementary tutoring) in China and the implementation of the Double Reduction Policy (prohibiting academic tutoring for compulsory schooling stage students), this study presents a comprehensive assessment of tutor responses to the implementation of the Double Reduction Policy and investigates the dynamic landscape of the shadow education sector, considering historical and contemporary developments. Employing a qualitative research approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of seven tutors, consisting of both institutional and private tutors. Thematic analysis was applied to the interview data to identify and interpret key themes. The findings show that while the Double Reduction Policy exhibits efficacy in certain aspects, the emergence of alternative approaches poses potential challenges to its overall effectiveness. Notably, this research offers a novel perspective by incorporating the viewpoints of tutors, shedding light on the potential trajectories of Chinese shadow education within the context of the Double Reduction Policy. Furthermore, this study contributes valuable insights to the scholarly discourse and serves as a pivotal reference for policymakers and stakeholders involved in the governance of the shadow education industry.