Dear colleagues,
it is our pleasure to invite you to participate in the preparation of a new special issue of the Orbis scholae journal focused on shadow education.
Alongside the development and expansion of participation in formal education, a massive growth of private supplementary tutoring has been observed worldwide. Sometimes, these private educational activities are labelled as a shadow education, a metaphor that is used to point out mimicry and close interrelations with formal schooling. Shadow education supplements the learning in formal education system, and in some cases the shadow even becomes more important than the body that it imitates.
The special issue of Orbis scholae will focus on various aspects and dimensions of the shadow education. The editors are keen to receive papers that explore the links and interrelationships between formal and shadow education system(s) within different social, cultural or economic contexts. The issue will contain empirical and theoretical papers which:
• focus on the prevalence, forms, nature and other characteristics of private tutoring in relation to secondary, primary or even pre-primary education levels;
• give voice to different stakeholders such as teachers, school administrators, parents, policy makers, and education researchers;
• raise critical issues related to the existence of the phenomenon and discuss the consequences and implications of private tutoring for education policy, social (in)equalities, school environments, teachers, families, pupils and/or private tutoring providers;
• explore the effects and effectiveness of different modes of private tutoring, in different settings and among different receivers.
Authors are encouraged to apply international and comparative perspectives when analysing the phenomenon. Single-country studies as well as comparative analyses of two or more countries are welcome.
Prospective authors interested in submitting papers for publication in this special issue of Orbis scholae should first submit a letter of interest by sending us the title and the abstract (about 500 words) of a prospective paper by February 28, 2019 (vit.stastny@pedf.cuni.cz and nutsak@hku.hk). The abstracts should contain the specification of research problem that will be addressed in the paper; data sources, methodological approach, expected outcomes and potential contribution of the paper to the scholarly literature should be described. Authors whose papers will be considered as suitable for the special issue will be notified by March 31, 2019. The full text is due on November 30, 2019. The papers will be reviewed by two anonymous reviewers during November 2019 –January 2020. Revised papers are to be sent to the editors by the end of April 30, 2020. The issue will be published by the end of 2020.
Guest editors
Vít Šťastný & Magda Nutsa Kobakhidze