The study is another result of the research project Post-socialist Transformation of Czech Primary Schools – Processes, Stories, Dilemmas (funded by the Czech Science Foundation, grant no. 20-11275S).

The text of the study is available here (in Czech).

Abstract:

The political changes after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 in Czechoslovakia fundamentally affected the life of society, including the form of education. The socialist concept of the unified school was abandoned in connection with the overall de- sire to decentralise and deregulate the structures created during the period of state socialism. However, the immediate impact on the life of schools can vary locally and be influenced by the nature of the environment. The study focuses on the context in which these changes impacted the everyday life of elementary schools in rural South Moravia, and it traces local specificities by analysing school chronicles and the memories of teachers who experienced the period of transformation in rural schools. It focuses in particular on personnel changes, the transformation of the relationship between schools and municipalities, and the dynamics of the influence of long-term processes of modernisation and political changes on school life.