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Data from the “Éducation et Famille” section of INSEE’s “Enquête Permanente sur les Conditions de Vie des Ménages” (EPCV, INSEE, October 2003) [Ongoing survey of household living conditions] are used to study demand for paid private tutoring in France. Private tutoring is compared to two other types of “shadow education”—free educational support from outside the family and support from family members (other than parents) or friends ; connections between tutoring use and the other actions and attitudes involved in family shaping of education are examined. It is suggested that paid private tutoring, unlike free non-family educational support, is part of a constellation of family practices aimed at constructing a scholastic advantage for the child, an undertaking in turn associated with strong educational and economic capital, whereas like free educational support it implies a move to externalize educational support (outside the family) that is closely related to household configuration. Perceived scholastic difficulty and the material resources a household has for treating the problem thus appear central to grasping the salient traits of the population of private tutoring users in France.