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The aim of this study is to examine the everyday life of day-care institutions and the culture of peer relationships that develop there. Interdisciplinary studies of childhood perceive it as a social construct separable from biological immaturity, and they describe a distinct toddler style of socialisation with peers. In this paradigm, participation in cultural routines is central to understanding child socialisation. Based on ethnographic observations in two facilities and interviews with teachers and parents, we explore relationships between peers, social routines, and the creation of collectivity. We focus on the perspective of adults and their perception of the children's collective and on the meanings of children's interactions. The analyses reveal that as well as socialising in hierarchical relationships with adults they also actively participate in cultural reproduction through the interpretation of meanings. What constitutes 'play' when socialising with adults becomes 'something real' when it occurs between physical and cognitive equals. Interaction with peers in a day-care facility allows a child to experience a collective 'WE', through which they are then able to to control adults. However, the creation of collectivity depends on their being conditions in place that are suitable for small children and toddlers.

Classrooms in Czechia are changing. What used to be a relatively ethnically homogeneous environment changed after 1989 and became much more diverse. How are children, both of Czech, as well as migrant origin, coping? What strategies do they use to negotiate their everyday lives in the classroom? We conducted an ethnographic study in two classes of one multicultural Czech elementary school and used an inductive analytical strategy. While the fifth grade was peaceful, the ninth graders were at war regarding language issues. We analysed ninth graders’ narratives of how this situation came into being and their explanations of whose attitudes needed to change. We identified strong pressure to fit in, exerted not only by majority classmates but also by some pupils with migrant backgrounds. In contrast, the fifth grade class revealed migrant children’s successful strategies of fitting in, which included helpfulness towards classmates, the development of strong social capital and compliance with authority. In ethnically heterogeneous classrooms, we identified a homogenising push to fit in and negative sanctions for standing out.

The book “A World for Children Under Three. Insights Into the Current Form of ECEC in the CR“ is the first pedagogical-sociological book in the CR dealing with current facilities for children under three years of age – children’s groups / micro-creches, kindergarten classes for two-year-olds, and children’s centres. It is addressed to professionals, students, parents and everyone else interested in bringing the worlds of parents, caregivers and children who meet in these facilities closer together. It presents key research findings of the project ECEC in Day Care Facilities in the CR, relating to children’s collective everyday life, the work of (head) teachers and nannies, and the experiences and expectations of parents, and relates them to the current system framework.

As a part of education fostering diversity, human rights and gender equality, sex education has proved an ideal target for disinformation. This article offers an analysis of articles on sex educati...

The sphere of early childhood education care (ECEC) in the Czech Republic has diversified enormously in the last decade. The article describes this diversification process and, drawing on focus group data, analyses parents’ choices within this diversified realm. Based on the parents’ selection criteria (significantly influenced by constraints and opportunities relating to social background or family status), it identifies four parental groups: pedagogical approach-centered, child-centered, facility-centered and (constrained) non-selective. The issues of ECEC diversification and parental choice are then discussed in light of Annette Lareau’s classed cultural logics of child rearing and the potential implications for the reproduction and reinforcement of social inequalities.

O instituci skoly se casto diskutuje z hlediska reprodukce socialnich nerovnosti. Obecně se ma za to, že vzdělani je v soucasných vyspělých demokratických spolecnostech nastrojem vzestupne socialni mobility a cim vice vzdělani, tim lepe. Ukazuje se vsak, že vzdělani samo o sobě neni spasitelem nabizejicim stejnou sanci každemu. V tomto clanku bych rada ukazala, že skola nejen reprodukuje socialni nerovnosti, což už přesvědcivě ukazali jini (např. Bernstein 1975, Bourdieu; Passeron 1977, Beck 2004, Shavit; Blossfeld 1993), ale že způsoby, jakými dnes funguje vzdělavani ve skolach, může blokovat (předevsim znevýhodněne) děti na jejich socialnich pozicich. Pomoci zjistěni z vlastniho etnografi ckeho výzkumu chci ukazat, jakými způsoby jsou dětem socialni nerovnosti prezentovany jako přirozene ci zasloužene, aniž by dochazelo k reflexi socialnich struktur, ktere tyto nerovnosti produkuji. Timto způsobem skola nerovnosti nejen reprodukuje, ale i legitimizuje.

V tomto clanku si vsimame toho, jak se ceský vzdělavaci system vypořadava s rostouci etnickou různorodosti. Zaměřujeme se přitom jak na perspektivu pedagogů, kteři uci ve třidach navstěvovaných dětmi migranty z Ukrajiny, Ruska, Vietnamu, tak na perspektivu samotných děti migrantů a jejich spolužaků. Předkladame výsledky analýzy dat ziskaných v průběhu etnografickeho výzkumu na vybraných skolach po cele Ceske republice. Vedle individualnich rozhovorů s pedagogy jsou to zejmena skupinove rozhovory s dětmi, v nichž identifikujeme diskurzivni strategie a repertoary charakteristicke zneviditelňovanim etnicity a udržovanim představy etnicky homogenniho celku. Cilem tohoto clanku je analýza procesů zneviditelňovani etnicity, ktere je v promluvach pedagogů spojeno s humanistickým ramovanim osobnosti žaka a u samotných žaků migrantů se projevuji performovanim normalnosti a bezproblemovosti, ktera ovsem musi být stvrzena jejich ceskými spolužaky. Etnickou různorodost v ceských skolach chapeme jako prostoupenou diskurzem stejnosti navzdory různosti.

The book summarizes the results of the project “Diversification of Preschool Education in the Czech Republic: Inclusion, Exclusion and Social Inequalities”. The research is based on group and individual interviews, mapping the context of preschool education and direct observations in preschools. It explores the links between social inequalities and the diversifying supply of preschool education, especially in connection to parental choices and strategies related to preschool selection. The book focuses on microprocesses of (re)constructing social differences that are grounded in the ethos of the facility, as well as in parents' perceptions of their children's temperaments and their understanding of childhood and children's needs in preschool age.

This article argues that the Czech education system is structured to operate in an ethnically homogeneous society. Although the Czech Republic is becoming increasingly heterogeneous, teachers deploy discursive practices of ‛sameness despite difference’ that obscure such growing diversity. This article is grounded in the historical context of migration to and from the Czech Republic and based on ethnographic research in several ethnically-mixed classrooms. We analyze the ways in which teachers talk about their pupils. We show that in the case of migrant children, teachers tend not to see their differences and hence, their potentially structural disadvantages. On the other hand, the Roma ethnicity is perceived as insurmountable. Teachers mobilize lists of cultural and even genetic differences to legitimize their different treatment of Roma pupils. Furthermore, we analyze policy documents regarding the education of non-Czech pupils and their reception by teachers. All these strategies result in the continuin...

In 2010 sex education became a surprising target of criticism in the secular Czech Republic. The voices of social conservatives were raised and were answered by the Minister of Education, who launched a reform of educational curricula to exclude sex education. This article analyses the discursive strategies employed by conservative opponents of sex education and highlights the interpretive repertoires of sexuality and gender. The authors argue that Czech conservatives deploy both a moral panic strategy and a discursive strategy of empowerment that uses positive sanctions to support 'good sex', defined exclusively as marital, procreative heterosex. This interpretive repertoire of 'good and healthy sexuality' is universally intelligible and thus has the potential to resonate not only with social conservatives but throughout society. When combined with other socially conservative agendas it has the capacity to regiment the public space and diminish the role of public institutions.

The article presents selected results from an ethnographic study on the (re)production of gender in the classroom. In this analysis, gender is conceived as a principle manifested in interactions, a principle that structures the lives of individuals and the collective, and not as a complex of essential characteristics of an individual. Gender is analysed in relation to other categories like age and ethnicity. These represent additional re/constructed categories that influence social inequality. These categories tend to be viewed as natural sources of social difference and the legitimisation of inequalities. An analysis of the ways in which these categories are activated in the social field makes it possible to go beyond the boundaries of research on the reification of these categories. In this article, the author shows how these categories intertwine and connect and how the interplay between them is manifested in the behaviour and strategies of various actors, i.e. students, in the classroom.

V ceskem prostředi byla realizovana cela řada výzkumů zaměřených na reprodukci nerovnosti prostřednictvim vzdělavaciho systemu. Zatimco větsina z nich se zabýva reprodukci nerovnosti třidnich, relativně malo analýz skolstvi se věnuje reprodukci nerovnosti genderových. Ty výzkumy, ktere existuji, trpi nedostatecnou konceptualizaci genderu. V předloženem přispěvku nabizime takove konceptualni uchopeni kategorie genderu při výzkumu vzdělavani, ktere se vyhýba jak univerzalizaci kategorie žena, tak struktury ignorujici individualizaci. Tvrdime, že divky, ackoli se v mnoha socialnich a individualnich ohledech od sebe navzajem odlisuji, jsou institucemi vzdělavaciho systemu serializovany jako ženy. Jsou od nich ocekavany jine výkony, ktere jsou dale jinak zdůvodňovany a jinak oceňovany, a jine profesni volby než od chlapců. Zaměřujeme se podrobněji na genderovanost instituce skoly, a to jak ve vztahu k segregovanosti oborů a stupňů studia podle pohlavi, tak ve smyslu interakci, k nimž dochazi v ramci výuky a při zvýznamňovani výkonů a aspiraci žakyň a žaků. Nasim argumentem je, že vzdělani, od něhož se obecně ocekava funkce socialniho výtahu a cesty k lepe placeným pozicim na trhu prace, funguje segregovaně pro ženy a pro muže.