Family Background, After-school Tutoring, and Student Achievement: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Rural China

Jere R. BEHRMAN, C. Simon FAN*, Xiangdong WEI, Hongliang ZHANG, Junsen ZHANG

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Other Conference ContributionsConference Paper (other)Other Conference Paperpeer-review

Abstract

The paramount importance of after-school tutoring has led some sociologists and educators to refer to it as the “shadow educational system,” which exists alongside the formal educational system with increasing relative size, particularly in some East Asian countries. A number of empirical studies in the literature of economics and sociology examine the impact of afterschool tutoring. However, most of these studies use non-experimental data, which often leads to problems of interpretation due to the issue of endogeneity. This paper conducts a theoretical and empirical investigation into the effect of after-school tutoring on the academic performances of some Chinese primary school students. Based on the data collected from a randomized controlled trial, our estimates show significant positive effect of after-school tutoring on the test score in mathematics. Moreover, this effect is significantly stronger for the children whose both parents are away from home, a phenomenon that is common in rural China.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages29
Publication statusPublished - 13 Jul 2017
Event18th annual Meeting of the Association for Public Economic Theory - Paris, France
Duration: 10 Jul 201713 Jul 2017
https://pet2017paris2.sciencesconf.org/

Conference

Conference18th annual Meeting of the Association for Public Economic Theory
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityParis
Period10/07/1713/07/17
Internet address

Bibliographical note

The authors are grateful to the funding support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71173178), Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund (No. 458910), and the CUHK Research Committee Group Research Scheme. They also thank the Educational Bureau of the Longhui County in China for administrative support and Chuantao Cui, Bei Luo, Amy Ru Chien Tseng, Jia Wu, Xiang Zhou for excellent research assistance.

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