BECE, Vol.11, No.1, 2022 1425 Parent Time Input in Teenager Education Matters More Than Shadow Education Xiaoqiao Cheng Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China “Education is what survives when what has been learned is forgotten.” –BF Skinner N recent years, shadow education—paid private supplementary tutoring providing additional educational assistance for students who are prepar- ing for a variety of examinations—has become one of the fastest growing industries in a number of countries around the world, causing concern among governments and education policymakers, who believe that shadow educa- tion exacerbates the financial burden on poor families and exacerbates educa- tion inequality (Yu & Zhang, 2022). The growing significance of educational accomplishments for students’ future careers, combined with the immense pressure schools face to maintain their ranking, may lead the majority of par- ents to seek out private tutoring as the most effective means of enhancing their children’s academic competitiveness. However, the opportunities for children from various socioeconomic backgrounds to participate in exam- focused shadow education are frequently mediated by their home economic strengths; as a result, children from low-income households face barriers to accessing shadow education. For instance, Byun (2019) found in his analysis that Seoul families often spend more than twice as much on shadow educa- tion as their rural counterparts. There is a widespread belief among global re- searchers that the substantial investment by families of superior economic © 2022 Insights Publisher. All rights reserved. Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed by the In- sights Publisher. I http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ BECE, Vol.11, No.1, 2022 1426 status in shadow education has resulted in higher educational attainment and consequently exacerbated the imbalanced gap between students from differ- ent social strata that is “taken for granted”. Although the government and relevant education policymakers have attempted to implement some reforms to address these issues, such as providing financial assistance to poor fami- lies, they have failed to adequately respond to the extraordinary expansion of educational aspirations resulting from the existing position of the consolidat- ed upper and middle classes. Entrich (2015) suggested that highly ranked public high schools in metropolitan areas would attract a greater proportion of students from affluent families who view extracurricular tutoring as a ne- cessity during their high school years. This may encourage them to enroll in the most prestigious universities, thereby ensuring their social standing re- mains above average. This provides a plausible explanation for the rise in popularity of shadow education. Therefore, numerous types of evidence indi- cate that students’ participation in shadow schooling is significantly influ- enced by their social origins and family incomes. In this issue, Family Time and Money Inputs in Education and Teen- ager Development: Interpretation of Social Capital, Cultural Capital, and Shadow Education by Li and He (2022) examined the connection between family financial and time investments in education and adolescent develop- ment. This study integrates home time and money inputs in education and reveals: there are class differences in family time and money investments in education; family time investment in education is the most influential factor on adolescent academic performance; social capital (parental participation) and cultural capital account for score gaps among students far more than shadow education. This article suggests that the influence of shadow educa- tion on the academic achievement of adolescents is not as great as previously believed. In addition to spending more money on off-campus supplemental tutoring for their children, parents from middle-class or higher socioeconom- ic backgrounds also devote more time to accompanying their children. In ad- dition, extracurricular tutoring on weekdays (Monday through Friday) has a considerable detrimental influence on adolescents’ academic performance, whereas weekend tutoring has a significant favorable effect. The most im- portant result of this study is that parents’ direct time investment in their children, like parent-child contact and parental companionship, has the big- gest effect on adolescent academic success. References Byun, S. Y. (2014). Shadow education and academic success in Republic of Korea. In Korean education in changing economic and demographic contexts (pp. 39-58). Springer, Singapore. BECE, Vol.11, No.1, 2022 1427 Entrich, S. R. (2015). The decision for shadow education in Japan: Students’ choice or parents’ pressure? Social Science Japan Journal, 18(2):193-216. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyv012 Li, J., & He, R. (2022). Family Time and Money Inputs in Education and Teenager De- velopment: Interpretation of Social Capital, Cultural Capital, and Shadow Educa- tion. Best Evidence in Chinese Education, 11(2): 1455-1460. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.22.ab002 Yu, J., & Zhang, R. (2022). A review of shadow education. Science Insights Education Frontiers, 11(2):1579-1593. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15354/sief.22.re058 Correspondence to: Xiaoqiao Cheng, Ph.D. Nanjing Normal University Nanjing 211200 Jiangsu China E-mail: xqcheng2008@vip.163.com Conflict of Interests: None. Doi: 10.15354/bece.22.co011 https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyv012 https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.22.ab002 https://doi.org/10.15354/sief.22.re058 mailto:xqcheng2008@vip.163.com