The growth and use of out-of-school structured learning activities for improving students‘ achievements has become one of distinct and enduring features of modern education systems and in some contexts shows up as an important factor influencing the results of pupils in international literacy or numeracy tests (Baker, LeTendre, & Wiseman, 2001; Entrich, 2014). A significant proportion of students take part in out-of-school-time lessons, especially in mathematics and the language of instruction: in OECD countries, an average proportion of students attending these kinds of lessons for science reach 35%, 48% for mathematics and 41% for the language of instruction (OECD, 2011, p. 27). Such forms of additional instruction outside school are often referred to as “shadow education” (e.g., Baker et al., 2001; Stevenson & Baker, 1992) emphasizing that some forms of supplementary education mimic and closely parallel instruction and curriculum in the mainstream school systems (Aurini, Davies, & Dierkes, 2013, p. XV). Results of quantitative correlational surveys show that the participation in such out-of-school learning activities (and especially the ones provided for a fee) is often socioeconomically determined, that is that students from better-off families are more likely than their counterparts to take private tutoring (see e.g., Collas, 2013; Długosz, 2016) and could possibly contribute to maintaining or exacerbating inequalities (Bray, 2011). Comparative studies (e.g., Southgate, 2009; Song, Park, & Sang, 2013) also show, that the participation in out-of-school extra lessons is influenced in various contexts (countries) by various factors with various strenght or significance. Thus, the comparative analysis contributes to better understanding of how the cultural or educational contexts shape the nature of the phenomenon and to better explain its causes and consequences.

To date, very few quantitative studies on the topic of extra lessons in academic subjects (authors are aware only of Silova, Būdiene, & Bray, 2006) focused especially on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which (to a large extent) share similar historical legacies from the era before 1989, but as shown by Herbst & Wojciuk (2016) evolved in a different way afterwards. Thus, they provide an interesting area for comparison due to a large variety of contexts in which the education phenomena in these countries occur.

The proposed study aims 1) to assess selected micro and macro-level factors related to students’ participation in out-of-school lessons in Mathematics and national language and to compare their significance in chosen Central- and East- European countries 2) to examine the relationship between the pupils’ participation in out-of-school education and their achievements in these countries.

To identify the factors influencing the participation in out-ofschool lessons, the study uses a conceptual framework of Jokić and Ristić Dedić (2013), who adjusted a Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development and identified possible factors affecting the decision to use private tutoring. They originate from five hierarchically organized levels (socially organized subsystems), namely, these are pupil, parents, school, education policy, and society. These subsystems include factors tightly associated with an individual (such as motivation, the perceived need for tutoring, etc.) together with remote factors originating from the settings of larger society and cultural context (Jokić & Ristić Dedić, 2013, pp. 28–30). 

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