Abstract
The chapter focuses on rural youth, their aspirations and attitudes toward education in the context of regional differentiation of living and educational conditions in Czech rural areas. Although Czechia is not a large country with extremely heterogeneous living conditions within its particular regions, the consequences of political, economic and societal transformations have not been identical everywhere.
On the example of Czechia, we would like to document variability of rural space considering diversity of local and regional factors influencing accessibility of compulsory education and students' aspirations. First, we will describe the character of external environment of provision of education on the basis of classification of rural space in Czechia utilizing quantitative socioeconomic indicators commonly used in current regionalizations.
We will analyze the spatial patterns in characteristics of rural elementary schools and in provision of education. We will explain factors leading to regional differentiation of rural space with special stress on contrasting conditions in inland and borderland areas and on tensions between cores and peripheries.
The specific geographical position and differences in past development of borderland and inland define many aspects of functioning of local communities up to present days. Second, we will describe Czech post-compulsory education system to present the institutional conditions setting the environment for student's aspirations and decision-making.
Generally, Czech school system is characterized by tracking pupils at rather early age and it has relatively high share of upper secondary students in technical/professional and vocational study tracks. Third, we will analyze disparities in aspirations of pupils ending compulsory education, their perceptions of spatial mobility and school choice in two different examples of rural areas.
One studied locality is located in a peripheral rural area in the Czech borderland and the second locality is located in Central Bohemia in the wider region around the capital city of Prague.