Shadow education and social inequalities: An integrative review of the phenomenon supplementary tutoring based on the theory of cultural and social reproduction

Abstract

The stratified nature of the educational system and post-academic opportunities has fostered the widespread development of the phenomenon known as Shadow Education (SE) – encompassing “tutoring” or “parallel education”. This educational phenomenon, permeated by a competitive ethos, particularly in secondary education, favors students with better pre-existing conditions for academic success, whether in regular education participation or in the access and acquisition of “symbolic capital”. This macrosocial framework places us in the presence of new inheritors as discussed by Bourdieu and Passeron in the context of the Theory of Cultural and Social Reproduction. Through an integrative literature review of scientific articles published between 2012 and 2022, ten articles were identified in the analysis corpus, shedding light on theoretical perspectives on SE and its resonance in the reproduction of social inequalities. Despite the results pointing to an emerging theoretical-conceptual approach from the Bourdieu’s sociological perspective, there is an underlying perception that shadow education brings closer the relationship between social class, cultural capital, and family economic resources to educational outcomes. Without making claims of generalization, the results of this research contribute to the deepening of the discussion and analysis of this phenomenon and its scope in terms of the social reproduction of inequalities in the educational field in general.