The present study aims to: a) reveal how parents rationalize and give meaning to the practices they develop concerning school choices, and those in the context of private tutoring organizations in Greece, b) trace the degree that this rationalization system of parental choice practices involves “taboo” elements, that is to say intentional and unintentional choice, which don’t  “touch” because they effect to their social moral code as well as reflect the desire of the individual success.

Plenty of important studies (Ball et al, 1995• Burgers et al, 2007• Health, 2009• Reveaud &Van Zanten, 2007) examine the parental school choices within the public and private education and highlight the social consequences of the configuration of the school map. Relative to private tutoring, despite the universal growth and study of this phenomenon, the “Shadow Education” is like a “puzzle” with most of the pieces missing (Bray, 2006• 2009• 2011).

The study on these “sensitive” subjects in Greece, is extremely limited. It remains a paradox that despite the overall awareness of the Greek public opinion about the  wide expansion of private tutoring organizations (called “frontistiria”), this issue has not been considered, analogically, as an important field of research by the domestic scientific community. It is fundamental to highlight the way in which parents give meaning and rationalize these practices, which although they have been “laid down”, are considered "taboo" subjects for society, because they put in the limelight the issue of the cliental relations, as well as the issue of the betrayal of the welfare state via the establishment of “shadow” education as a facet of black economy.

In the " neoliberal project of globalization” (Olssen-Peters, 2005), parents respond with some “globalized” practices such as the pursuit of "successful" schooling in specific school institutions, violating the school map (Van Zanten, 2008· 2009). These practices constitute a significant part of the European policy agenda in education, translating this aim of parents as "free choice". Hence, a neoliberal rhetoric of “free choice” has been formed and competitiveness among schools is promoted as an expression of social justice, just as happened in the case of France (Sarkozy, 2007)[1]. These choices appear to be associated to each family habitus, which is interdependent of the social group they belong (Bourdieu, 1980). As parental practices, also referred the choice of residence, their intervention in school function (Mc Namara et al, 2003· Van Zanten, 2005), their choices regarding private schools, or tutorials. In this last field, we focus on parental practices related to the type and number of tutorials used. The classroom based  tutoring has been considered as a low-budget option compared to private tutoring lessons, displayed as more personalized "strategy" that seeks to control the scholar activities (Bray, 2006).

A plethora of studies focus on the so-called “hidden privatization of education” (Ball & Youdell, 2007), which conceals specific political interests and exacerbate educational and social inequalities. In order for parents to satisfy their expectations, they “loosen their limits” between the fair and illegal selection. However, as Spinoza (2000) argues, “choose” means “I desire what satisfies me” and the man’s nature is desire. Nevertheless, when an individual fulfils a desire that cites in “illegal” social selections, simultaneously it detests it, behaving with ambivalence (Freud, 2001). Hence, this action is becoming a “taboo” with the Freudian meaning of the term, it takes the prospective of  “forbiddance” and “sacredness”. It seems that parental choices regarding school education and private tutoring, have ranked as taboos, because they have been veiled in an inspirational (moral) way, either through the mention, or mainly through their aposiopesis.

[1] See Nikolas Sarkozy’s speech at the UMP Congress. 

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