The seeing and the seen: contrasting perspectives of post‐communist Czech schooling

Abstract

This study analyses both foreign (primarily western European and North American) and Czech perspectives of Czech schooling in the post‐communist era. Qualitative content analysis is performed on documentary sources written by scholars about Czech schooling. The analysis examines which topics are highlighted, what are the main patterns and what is the overall perspective of the document. The analysis is guided by theory from intellectual history about the social construction of ‘Eastern Europe’. The study finds that Western perspectives of post‐communist Czech schooling are mostly negative and are typically based on common sense notions and casual observation rather than comprehensive knowledge and thorough research. It therefore concludes that Western perspectives of Czech schooling are influenced by the social construction of Eastern Europe. Ironically, many of the Western scholars use the concept of democracy to justify this distorted viewing of Czech schooling as an ‘Other’ to that in the West.

Keywords:

• Czech republic
• Post‐communism
• Democratisation
• Educational reform

Notes

1. The percentages are greater than 100 because some documents discuss more than one topic.

2. Freedom House is a non‐profit organisation which evaluates democracy throughout the world on a yearly basis. Since 1993, the first year that Freedom House rankings reflected the break‐up of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic has received the same ranking of democratisation as many other OECD countries such as France, Germany and the UK (Freedom House, 2001).