Shadow education and competition: the views of hungarian high school and university students on the relationship between competition and shadow education

Abstract

The first part of the paper discusses the existing literature on the relationship between competition and shadow education, and presents those macro and micro levels at which competition is present in the shadow educational area. The second part presents an empirical qualitative research carried out with high school and university students. Participants were asked in an open-ended question about their perceptions of the relationship between competition and shadow education. It was found that university students perceive this relationship with its positive and controversial aspects in a much more complex way than high school students. In spite of their understanding of the destructive side of shadow education in terms of educational equality, social justice and meritocracy, almost 100 percent of them have participated in shadow education.