The Platformization of Private Tutoring and the Making of Education Influencers

• In Event: Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 14. Digital divide & education

Abstract

This article explores how private tutoring, the private supplementary instruction outside of formal education, is changing with and adapting to a new digital reality. Using the case of Egyptian secondary education, which features a formidable shadow education industry and an endemic private tutoring phenomenon, it particularly examines how digital platforms are penetrating the labor of private tutors, restructuring their roles and practices, and amplifying their scale and reach. This article builds on three years of digital ethnographic fieldwork to argue that and show how traditional tutors are morphing into education influencers. Building on their in-person tutoring, education influencers fuse their entrepreneurial talents with a utilization of digital learning platforms and social media platforms to become content creators and micro-celebrities. Driven by unrelenting competitive pressures and unrestrained profit potential, they are extending their reach and amplifying their scope through novel business models and revenue streams. Importantly, education influencers are becoming de facto informal educational institutions that are not only reshaping shadow education but also challenging public schooling and exacerbating the privatization of education.

Author

• Hany Zayed, Marquette University