Docimasia de Hipótesis

The decision about which policy documents to analyse was simplified by the paucity of such documents that were produced during the 1990s. As described in the literature review, the early 1990s witnessed a rapid dismantling of the ideological confines of communism in education, but this was not accompanied by a parallel implementation of new policies to replace those deemed irrelevant. The 1984 School Act remained in place, merely being modified in response to the most urgent needs, rather than overhauled and replaced. From today’s perspective, it appears rather that the education system was caught up in the contemporary zeitgeist and subjected to the same de-regulation as many other public institutions and opened up to the forces of the free market – one of the first reforms to the 1984 act was to de- centralise education and allow the establishment of private and denominational schools, which as of 2012 account for 3% of the total number of basic schools and around one quarter of all secondary schools (MŠMT, 2012). It was not until the late 1990s that the process of educational reform began to become coherently expressed in the form of policy documents produced by MŠMT (The Ministry of Youth, Education and Sport). The Bílá

kniha [White Paper] (2001) was among the most significant of these early

documents and formed the basis for the development of the legally binding Education Act (2004) and the Rámcový vzdělávací program [RVP] (Jeřábek and Tupý, 2007) that followed it. Although an earlier (2005) version of the RVP had been considered, in the end, the Rámcový vzdělávací program [RVP](2007) was chosen as, while it was virtually identical in content, the 2007 version contained one extra sub-section: ‘8.3 Tvorba školního

vzdělávacího programu v základních školách při zdravotnických zařízeních, ve školách při dětských diagnostických ústavech a ve školách při školských zařízeních pro výkon ústavní a ochranné výchovy’38 _{(Jeřábek and Tupý,}

2007). It was considered that given that pupils from non-Czech, and particularly Roma backgrounds remain disproportionately likely to be educated outside of mainstream classes (Špondarová, 2008), this version might yield more insight into the mechanisms of segregation at work.

4.3.2 Textbooks

A total of eight textbooks were analysed covering grades 6-9 of basic school. The textbooks selected for analysis were history (dějepis) and citizenship education (občanská výchova) textbooks that appeared on the list of textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education for use in the school year 2013-2014 (MŠMT, 2013). These subjects were chosen because history and citizenship are the two subjects that comprise the curricular area “Člověk a společnost”39_,

the area that focuses on how students orient themselves in relation to others in their society. Morgan points out that “History textbooks are seen as representations of a nation’s official history as they build identity and form conceptions of morality in their readers” (2012, p. 85), and citizenship education is a means of “Encouraging citizens, particularly young people, to actively participate in social and political life” (Eurydice, 2012). In the Czech context, it appears these are the main subjects associated with the formation of a sense of national identity, given that (together with geography) they are compulsory for every Czech citizen.

On the list of approved textbooks, there is a selection of six series of

38 _{Development of a School Education Programme at Elementary Schools Which Are a Part}

of Healthcare Facilities, at Schools Which Are a Part of Children’s Diagnostic Institutions and at Schools Which Are a Part of Educational Institutions Providing Institutional Care and Care in Juvenile Correction Institutions.

history textbooks from different publishers, and five series of citizenship textbooks for the same age range. Schools are free to make use of any of the textbooks on the list. Those selected were all published by Fraus, which is the largest textbook manufacturer in the Czech Republic and were chosen for analysis partly for this reason and partly because only one other publisher (Nová Škola) had a full textbook series for grades 6-9 for both subjects on the MŠMT approved list. Although it is not certain that this is the case, informal discussions with teachers and booksellers pointed to the Fraus series being slightly more widely used. Unfortunately, the sixth grade citizenship textbook had been taken out of circulation, therefore 7 out of 8 of the textbooks analysed were published in 2011, the sixth grade citizenship textbook used in this study was published in 2012.

4.3.3 Accessing interviewees

For this project a series of qualitative, semi-structured interviews were carried out with a non-probability sample of teachers and former pupils of Czech primary schools. Although the preference was to have in-person interviews with all willing participants, in the end this was not possible to arrange for practical reasons. Responses therefore came from a mixture of in person interviews, email responses to the same interview schedule, and typed responses to the interview schedule via the online tool “Survey Monkey”. The questions in the interviews and online were identical. Face-to-face interviews lasted between twenty and thirty minutes. Appendices four and five includes the list of questions used during interviews with students and teachers. The sampling method used to find participants from among the population of former pupils was a combination of convenience sampling, i.e. “a sample that was selected because of its availability to the researcher” (Bryman, 2008, p. 692) with “snowball sampling” in which participants were invited to pass on information about the project to other potential participants (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007, p. 117). Having studied Czech language as part of an undergraduate degree, I had a range of contacts from among former teachers and friends made while travelling in the country in the two years prior to data collection as part of summer schools of Czech Language. An initial email was sent out to find out if any of them would a) be willing to participate in the research themselves; and b) be willing to pass on information about the

research to anyone who matched the criteria set. It invited them to contact me or my supervisor with any further questions or to arrange an interview. The criteria for participants in this set of interviews was simply that they must, for ethical reasons, be over eighteen years old, and must have been attending the basic stage of compulsory schooling (základní škola)40 _{after 1989 and}

completed it. Sampling in this way necessarily restricts the representativeness of the sample – it meant that many of the participants were of a similar age, social class, and level of education to me, and all the participants had at least completed some form of secondary education. These selection criteria might also account for the fact that, even with the snowball sampling method, there were no Roma participants, as a significant number of Czech Roma do not complete the full nine years of základní škola, and a significant percentage (17%) have never been in formal education (European Agency For Fundamental Rights, 2011). Given that the stage of education in focus was the latter years of základní škola, this was unfortunately unavoidable. Nevertheless, this was not considered to be a major obstacle to the validity of the results due to the qualitative, inductive nature of the study. The limitations described here were somewhat mitigated by the fact that respondents came from a wide geographical area which still allowed for a broad range of perspectives, as did the fact that only two of the respondents attended the same school as each other. The breakdown of the response methods, together with basic demographic information, and our relationship prior to the commencement of the study, is given in Table 4.1:

40 _{Roughly equivalent to Key Stage 1-3 in the UK system, and from primary 1 to S2 in the}

Table 4.1: Demographic Information of student participants

It was decided that to obtain a fuller picture of the changes in the Czech education system, those entrusted with the implementation of those changes – teachers and head teachers – should also be represented. As the project is focused on the compulsory education at základní škola, interviews were conducted with teachers from this group. As none were personally known to the researcher, a call for participants was placed in the online newspaper

Britské Listy, which is generally considered to be a liberal, left-wing

publication. This necessarily restricted respondents to the readership of this website (although the call was also shared on social media, so might have in fact reached others who might not otherwise have seen it). To mitigate this bias, some interviews were also arranged as a result of contacts made during the student interviews. The call for participants generated a large number of responses, but out of those who were willing and eager to share their views and contribute to the project only a relatively small number met the desired criteria of having worked in a základní škola for at least five years since 1989.

Pseudonym Year of birth

Gender Town of school attendance (základní škola)

Method of response

Known to researcher prior to the study?

Simon 1993 Male Bouzov Interview Yes (friend)

Jan 1981 Male Blansko Questionnaire

Return

No

Petr 1991 Male Unknown rural

school

Interview No

Michal 1988 Male Uherské Hradiště Interview Yes (friend)

Julie 1989 Female Nový Jičín Interview Yes (friend)

Natalie 1992 Female Dřevohostice Interview No

Lucie 1991 Female Ostrava Interview Yes (friend)

Barbora 1985 Female Kolín Interview Yes (friend)

Anna 1990 Female Liberec Questionnaire

Return

No

Vera 1988 Female Chrudim/Pardubice Questionnaire Return

Yes (friend)

Daniela 1991 Female Kolín Questionnaire

Return

No

Darja 1994 Female Unknown rural

school, South Moravia

Part of the initial research design was to have a balance of those who had been educated in rural and urban environments. However, the sampling method could not guarantee this, therefore the majority of respondents happen to be from smaller cities as well as towns and villages. Prague was unfortunately unrepresented. Twice as many females as males were interviewed in the student group, and all of the teachers interviewed were female. It was not deemed necessary to try to rectify this imbalance, given that “There are significantly more female than male teachers at primary education level in all [EU] Member States. In 2011, 85% of primary education teachers in the EU27 were women, with the highest percentages in the Czech Republic and Slovenia (both 97%)” (Eurostat, 2014). If the pool of respondents from among the student population had been overwhelmingly male or female, then some steps may have been taken to redress this in the interests of fairness, if not representativeness. Demographic information for this group of participants, and the method of response used are given in the following table:

Pseudonym Role Years of

experience Location Method of response Known to researcher prior to the study? Jana Primary school

teacher

11 Dědčin Questionnaire

Return

No

Petra Primary school teacher (2nd stage)

30 Brno Questionnaire

Return

No

Diana Primary school music teacher

30 Brno Email

exchange

No

Helena Headteacher 19 Bouzov Email

exchange

No

Sabrina Retired teacher 27 Unknown Email

exchange

No

Tereza Primary school teacher

26 Chomutov Interview No

Janina Primary school teacher

28 Prague Interview No

Table 4.2 Demographic Information of Teacher Participants

The calls for participants were issued in Czech, firstly in order to generate a higher number of responses, and secondly to ensure that the sample, although not representative of the Czech population as a whole, would not be solely restricted to those who spoke English. These calls, with their translations, are provided in Appendices 1 and 2. Conducting the interviews using email

exchanges and a web-based questionnaire tool, as well as face-to-face, was necessary in order not to lose out on potentially insightful information from willing participants due to practical limitations, which are outlined in detail in section 4.5.3.

The interview schedule was identical for each group, regardless of whether the interview was conducted online or in person. The aim was to allow for unstructured responses that allowed participants “to have the freedom to give their own answer as fully as they choose rather than being constrained in some way by the nature of the question.” (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007, p. 359). However, it is possible that the format of the method of data collection acted as a constraint in itself. Notably, in the face-to-face interviews, it was possible to ask participants to expand upon or clarify a particular point, through “prompts” and “probes” (Morrison, 1993, p. 66) whereas in the email exchanges, which this was theoretically possible, the rapport established in the interview setting made this a more useful tool. Nevertheless, the email responses were generally expansive and detailed. The online interview format was adopted in order to widen the pool of participants through “snowball sampling”, due to the relative ease of sharing the interview questions through a weblink. The questions were administered using the online tool “Survey Monkey”, which allowed respondents to type answers free form, allowing for unstructured responses, and did not limit the amount that participants were able to write. This approach was considered suitable for the complexity of the information sought (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007, p. 321). However, in practice, the participants who responded through the questionnaire sometimes provided briefer answers than those participants who had personal contact with the researcher, either in person or via email.

4.4 Ethics

Conducting interviews requires that participants' basic rights and privacy are respected, and that the interview process causes them as little inconvenience as possible. A key ethical consideration is that of informed consent. All participants had to be over eighteen years of age to be considered capable of giving such consent. For the interviews, a Plain Language Statement and consent form (Appendix 3) were provided to all potential participants, which outlined the nature and purpose of the research. After having time to read this

and ask any questions, participants were then asked to sign the Interview Consent Form prior to the interview taking place. All participants were offered the option of a version of these documents translated into Czech, but they could all read English well enough to understand and agree to take part, even if their preference was to have the interviews conducted in Czech.

Anonymity was guaranteed to participants in the consent form in order to protect participants’ privacy. Identifying markers have been removed as far as possible. All data collected (written or recorded) for this project has been stored on a password protected computer. Participants were assured that data would be kept only until the completion of the project, then would be deleted. They were also reminded of their right to withdraw from the research at any time prior to its submission.

As a student of Czech language and culture, and as a teacher, it was important for the researcher to maintain an awareness of personal views and prejudices through the process of designing and conducting the research, taking care that this did not bias my approach. An example of this occurred when considering whether to include a question in the interview schedule on the “romská otázka” (the Roma question). Reading for previous research and the literature review had uncovered what appears to be incontrovertible evidence of widespread, systematic discrimination against Roma children in the Czech Republic's education system (see for example: Roma Education Fund, 2011; Amnesty International, 2010). This appeared to be a central issue in questions regarding Czech education Czech identity and out-group exclusion. However, it was decided upon reflection, knowing the strength of feeling that can accompany such discussions, that it would be best left out of the interview schedules and only brought up if the participants decided that it was an issue worth mentioning, as its omission would be almost equally informative as its inclusion. A major factor in this decision was that whilst interviewing strangers in a foreign language and an unfamiliar setting, the researcher did not wish to find herself agreeing with objectionable points of view (from her own perspective) out of politeness or uncertainty, nor engaged in attempting to talk people out of their deeply held beliefs.

It was felt that insider knowledge of the teaching profession offered some advantage when interviewing teachers, as it provided an awareness of some of the pressures faced by this group, thereby enabling the researcher to empathise with participants. This helped to build trust and had an overall

positive effect on the quality of data gathered from interviews. However, the “researcher effect” – where the subjective position of the researcher impacts on the design, conduct, and reporting of results – should not be ignored either. This effect might also have come into play during the interviews with students, as participants had varying degrees of social ties towards the researcher which may have exacerbated the imbalance of power that is present in a research situation. Overall, however, the fact that the researcher was known and trusted by this group, even if only slightly, appeared to have a positive effect on the information gathered and the frankness of respondents’ answers. The initial design of this project was approved by the College of Arts ethics committee at the University of Glasgow.

4.5 Research Procedure

This section outlines the procedures used for collecting data from the different primary sources of empirical data. It describes the selection and analysis of policy documents and textbooks in sections 4.5.1 and 4.5.2 respectively. Section 4.5.3 outlines the interview process for both the in-person and online interviews.

4.5.1 Document Analysis

Once the documents Bílá kniha [White Paper](2001) and Rámcový vzdělávací

program [RVP](2007) (had been selected, they were subjected to a thematic

analysis. This type of analysis, based on a constructivist perspective, assumes that language is a factor that shapes social realities, rather than merely reporting them. As well as considering the content of the document, the rhetoric employed, and the prioritisation of issues were also be analysed. The purpose of this was to examine, at the level of policy, the ways in which education may contribute towards pupils’ senses of identities and belonging, as well as promoting positive attitudes towards others.

After several readings, these documents were coded in much the same way as the interview transcripts, although rather than adopting a line-by-line approach, which would have been unnecessarily exhaustive, this was instead carried out per paragraph, where each one was assigned one or two codes, which were then grouped into themes. For the Bílá kniha[White Paper], these

were: the aims of the paper; the goals of education envisioned in the paper; the form and content of compulsory schooling in the paper; and inclusion and equality in the white paper. It also considers what the overall structure of the

Bílá kniha [White Paper] reveals about the priorities of Czech policy makers at

the time of its production. When the Rámcový vzdělavací program [RVP] was coded in the same way, different themes emerged, namely: language learning, developing national consciousness, multi-cultural education, and approaches to equality and inclusion. Analysis of this document will also take into account what its structure and organization suggest about the priorities of those who developed it.

4.5.2 Textbook Analysis

The importance of textbooks in transmitting cultural knowledge is often alluded to, yet methodological guidelines for their analysis are still somewhat scarce