Market-Making Practices of Private Tutoring in Finland: Commercialization of Exam Preparation for Admission to Higher Education

Abstract

Purpose: This study focuses on courses that prepare applicants for universities’ highly competitive entrance examinations in Finland. The analysis clarifies the market-making practices and the construction of this field. Design/Approach/Methods: To understand these processes, we use Çalişkan and Callon’s five framings for studying marketization as a heuristic framework. In our analysis, we combine different data sets, including data on course provision, thematic interviews, documents, and ethnographic notes. Findings: In this article, we argue that the preparatory course markets in Finland are an example of private tutoring which operates in the privacy of the university applicants’ exam preparation process, thus commercializing this process. The market making of this type of private tutoring is an assemblage of a variety of agents that interact in parallel with each other. Originality/Value: This study aims to contribute to the systemic understanding of the assemblage of private tutoring markets in an equality-focused Nordic country by providing new heuristic lenses from economic sociology through which to view private tutoring.