Private tuition in Spain: its implications for educational inequalities

Abstract

Research at an international level has shown that in recent years there has been substantial growth in the use of private classes as an educational reinforcement for students in compulsory education. This subject is closely intertwined with other fundamental issues in education policy such as fairness and freedom of choice, making it an important field for investigation. Previous research has shown that parents who organize private tuition for their children tend to come from the highest socioeconomic and cultural strata of society. This article analyzes the use of Shadow Education by students of Compulsory Secondary Education in the Spanish context of the last decade, through information provided by PISA. This is intended to expand the scientific information on this subject which has been little investigated nationally, but has great international significance and has important implications for equity in education. We therefore decided to explore the consequences of the growth in shadow education for equality in education in Spain. This is a cross-sectional study using the Spanish sample of PISA 2009 and data regarding the use of private tuition collected in the Student Questionnaire and School Questionnaire. These differences in the use of private tuition suggest that further investigation is required and that policies regulating this sector should be introduced