Education and Transition: Czechoslovakia, 1980-2000

"The proposed research will explore the social and political impacts of the transition from Communist Czechoslovakia to the post-communist states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, focusing specifically on the extent to which these were reflected in, and potentially moulded via, education. It will examine change in the primary and secondary education during the period 1980-2000, the pace of that change, and the role of human agency in the change, in order to gain an understanding of the extent to which the education system played a role in the 'programming' and 'reprogramming' of society in transition. Within this, the role of the state as an originator of discourse will be examined and an appreciation of the extent to which education was a vector for state discourse, the content of that discourse, and the success or failure of the state for inculcating desired values in those within education and society in a broader context.

The research will focus in particular on the continuities and changes in the discoursive aspects of education during the period of transition and the extent to which the changes made to the education system in this period reflected the aims of the official state discourse(s). Key research questions to be addressed will be concerned with the nature of education - covering syllabi, state education policy and administration, teachers, students, learning materials - in late Communist Czechoslovakia as Soviet control over Eastern Europe showed signs of weakening, through the period of the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the Velvet Divorce of 1993, and the first decade of post-communist rule in the Czech Republic and Slovakia; they include:

What were the ideological concerns surrounding the educational model before, during and after the Revolution and Divorce?
What did socialist and post-socialist education try to achieve and what aspects of education were used to transmit the discourse(s)?
What was the relationship between the educational aims of both states in transition and the change of focus when it comes to humanities and languages?
What does the preference for particular types of schools before and after the Revolution tell us about the extent to which education was meant to direct people's way of approaching changes happening around them?
Who were the main actors formulating the educational aims and shaping the changes taking place in the education sector of this period and what were their motives for putting forward the ideas they did?
How important was the dissident movement as a challenger of the official state discourse before the Revolution and as an influence on its formation after?
Were there groups or individuals whose views were marginalised when formulating proposals, or perhaps a group that did not seem to want to participate and if so, why was that the case?
How similar did the education systems of both republics remain after the Divorce and what were the reasons for similarities and differences?
How important a role did external organisations - both state and non-state connected ones- such as youth organisations, political parties and the Church play when it comes to discoursive aspects of education?"