Abstract
The paper explores parental choice of specialized classes which are offered by some public schools in Czechia. Such classes feature a specific educational approach (Montessori, Waldorf) or an extended curriculum in certain subjects (music, languages, mathematics).
Typically, specialized classes allow students to attend all lessons separately from their peers in regular classes at the same school, similarly to such phenomena in Finland (Berisha & Seppänen, 2017), Germany (Krieg, Stubbe, Nonte, & Haas, 2019), and Sweden (Lilliedahl, 2021). Although specialized classes enrich the landscape of educational choices, they may present a threat to educational equity by enabling tracking based on achievement or socioeconomic status (Varjo & Kalalahti, 2019).
In the past decade, Czechia has experienced a boom of specialized classes at the primary school level. Some of these classes have been found to be favoring middle-class pupils with no learning disabilities in their selection procedures or only admitting pupils whose parents can afford to pay hidden fees (Blažková, 2014; Straková & Simonová, 2015).
Such fees are then used for hiring additional teaching staff, equipping classrooms with modern technologies, or providing other educational services not found in other classes at the same school (Smith Slámová, 2018). Thus, in addition to affecting the social composition of regular classes, Czech specialized classes may also be providing a different educational experience in areas unrelated to their declared focus.
Given these concerns, it is important to explore why such classes are becoming an increasingly appealing educational option for Czech parents. Research exploring parental choice of specialized classes in the Czech context has been mainly quantitative.
Studies indicate that parents with a completed secondary school exit exam ('maturita') are more likely to consider a primary school with a special focus compared to parents without such an exam (Straková & Simonová, 2015). If parents perceive their child as talented, they are more likely to seek out a school with a special focus; however, this does not apply to the same extent to parents with lower educational attainment (ibid).
Thus, it is not surprising that the children of educated parents tend to be overrepresented in some types of specialized classes (Greger & Soukup, 2014). As of now, there is a shortage of qualitative studies addressing parental choice of specialized classes in Czech primary schools.
Little is known about the parents' school choice criteria, their reasoning behind these criteria, the schools they consider, the timeline of their decision making, or their children's characteristics that might influence the process. The present study aims to fill this gap by exploring the school choice process of parents who consider specialized classes as their child enters primary school.
Regarding the study's implications for educational equity, the paper draws on Bourdieu's theory of social reproduction (1973). In addition, Annette Lareau's (2003) concepts of "concerted cultivation" and the "accomplishment of natural growth" were employed to distinguish between various types of parenting styles and their possible role in the school choice process.
Finally, the choice of methodology was influenced by Bowe, Gewirtz, and Ball's (1994) call for greater contextualization of school choice research. As such, the study aims to capture the meanings that parents in various contexts of urban Czechia attach to different school characteristics, reflecting that parents can use the same words to refer to remarkably different ideas.