Set against the pivotal context of COVID-19 and the “Double Reduction” policy, this book offers an intimate portrait of private English tutors in China’s largest cities, tracing their career trajectories, identity struggles, and working lives across the private tutoring industry.

Drawing on first-hand research, including observations, interviews, and the author’s insider experience, the book shows how private English tutors navigate unstable pay, ambiguous legal status, and public suspicion. It examines their daily struggle to determine whether they are educators or service providers, and how that tension shapes their identities and careers. Using a systems framework, it connects individual tutoring encounters to broader political, social, and cultural forces, particularly the tension between market-driven education and state regulation. The book’s insights extend beyond China, shedding light on the future of teaching, private tutoring, and the workers who sustain education systems worldwide.

This book will appeal to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners interested in private tutoring. It speaks to the fields of comparative and international education, sociology of education, teacher professional development, and education policy, while also resonating with sociology of work and labor studies, as well as Asian and China studies.

Min Lyu holds a PhD in Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from Hong Kong Baptist University. She is currently a lecturer affiliated with the School of Foreign Languages, Nanning Normal University. Her research focuses on English private tutoring in shadow education, teacher and tutor professional identity and development, and comparative international education.