Symbiotic Shadows: Institutional Parasitism and the Fieldwork From Art Admission Tutoring World in China

ABSTRACT Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a leading art tutorial organization in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, this paper traces how China's art tutoring organizations emerge, evolve, and proliferate as parasitic formations within the art admission ( Yi Kao ) institution. Using the theoretical lens of institutional parasitism, the study shows that their emergence is rooted in the institutional opacity of the art admission institution, combined with the coerced demand for tutorial services and their corresponding supply. These organizations strategically exploit the spaces created by institutional decoupling to transform from peripheral service providers into embedded institutional parasites. They construct privileged pathways, propagate the myth of a shortcut to elite status, and standardize test‐taking techniques to reinforce their indispensability. Their proliferation is further sustained through producing ignorance, exploiting tolerance, and colluding for lucrativeness, which collectively normalize moral compromise and institutional hybridity. Overall, these findings suggest that the organizations' expansion is driven by the coexistence of systemic opacity, moral pragmatism, and collusion between market and state actors, revealing how neoliberal pressures shape the legitimacy and ethical foundations of educational institutions.