Learning in the shadows: socialization into elite status through private tutoring education in urban Bangladesh

Abstract

Private tutoring—or as it is synonymously known, shadow education—is a ubiquitous and well-known phenomenon, both globally and in Bangladesh. Millions of students engage in private tutoring, with UNESCO (2018) finding 92% of students in Bangladesh were taking private tutoring lessons in 2017, the highest among their sample of Asia-Pacific countries (p. 72). This mixed-methods study is an investigation of why students of elite status, who already enjoy significant privileges in their education, further engage in private tutoring. In this dissertation, I asked what role private tutoring centers play within the education and socialization of students into elite groups in urban Bangladesh. Employing a social reproduction framework as well as a critical realist approach, I used class observations, interviews, a questionnaire, and social media data to examine how students of higher socio-economic backgrounds were being shaped into eliteness at a tutoring center in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I found through engaging at a well-resourced and reputed tutoring center, students were able to maintain and extend their different forms of capital—cultural, economic, affective and social—which in turn led to the cultivation of their eliteness. Within this tutoring space, practices of care and a personal approach to teaching led to students and staff building deep and trusting connections with each other. These rich relationships enhanced students’ learning through affective means, taught them how to navigate hierarchical interactions and feel at ease in diverse contexts, as well as influenced students’ embodied cultural capital through their teachers’ own dispositions and attitudes. I also found many students were completely opting out of English Medium schools to instead rely on private tutoring for all of their educational needs, particularly for their last two to three years of high school. This was due to an overall fall in the value of English Medium schooling, leading to what I contend is a watershed moment for the sector—where private tutoring is no longer viewed as just a supplement to schooling, but instead a de-facto requirement, and even a positive alternative. For a secondary education environment in Bangladesh that is already heavily dominated by private and non-state actors, this moment portends a future where the role of non-state actors will deepen even further in the commodification and delivery of education. However, I argue what these findings ultimately mean is the neoliberal order in Bangladesh is one that is malleable and multifaceted; in its ability to hold rationalizing and market oriented forces in productive tension with the relational richness and affective care demonstrated within these tutoring spaces.