In recent decades regular education worldwide has increasingly been supplemented by organized out of school tutoring, which in international research is often referred to as shadow education (Bray, 2014). The emergence of shadow education has been attributed to factors like high-stake testing, educational performance as a capital merit and the shortcomings of regular education (de Castro & de Guzman, 2010). The availability, use and outcome of measures, comparisons and ranking are some of the drivers and motives for shadow education. On the one hand, shadow education can be seen as an offshoot of the evidence movement and a quest for educational knowledge appearance. On the other hand, different forms of private and supplementary education have a long history in many countries. However, changes at the education agora have been identified. In Sweden, we note the increase of both suppliers and buyers and a shift from selection and exclusion to election and inclusion. Today’s education is inscribed in global educational discourses that include ideas and programmes of governance, quality assurance and accountability. Nevertheless, education is culturally embedded in the social and historical context of national educational systems and local educational practices (Waldow & Steiner- Khamsi, 2012). Accordingly, in order to explore shadow education in Sweden, its practices and consequences, it needs to be contrasted with practices in other cultural contexts. We compare practices of shadow education in Sweden with those in Russia and Canada/France as they appear on websites and in various documents. These cases vary in terms of language, political-, cultural- and educational context and history. Simultaneously, they make comparisons possible through the occurrence of equivalents. The overall aim is to compare how supplementary education shadows regular education. Our research question addresses how teaching, learning and identities are constructed and negotiated in supplementary education in various national contexts. We draw on two theoretical perspectives – curriculum theory and ethnomethodology – to investigate how knowledge, norms, values and identities are articulated in supplementary education. Through these approaches and comparisons of practices in Sweden, Russia and Canada/France, theoretical and empirical contributions are made about educational appearances and activities at today’s education agora.

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