Although textbooks, conference papers, scientific journals and monographs deal with the research aspects of public policy, only little attention is paid to the way it is taught at universities. In this article we aim to explore academic public policy in the Czech Republic -specifically in terms of teaching outputs -using a unique method: an analysis of diploma theses. In the sample there were diploma theses defended within all the full-time Master's study programmes having "public policy" in their names in the Czech Republic between 1995 and 2013. We conclude that there are two traditions of academic public policy in the Czech Republic, which enriches previous findings in the area and makes them more accurate. The research design and thoroughly described methodology invite other researchers to conduct international comparison of the features of academic public policy. The findings may also illustrate the trajectory made by the newly established discipline of public policy in the past twenty years in the Czech Republic, which may be of great interest to the newly formed international public policy community.

Until now, the process of adaptation in the education system has been researched by Czech scholars exclusively in connection to the adaptation of children. This empirical study examines the adaptation of parents in relation to the formation of the relationship between them and their child’s school. The theoretical framework of the study is based on literature conceptualizing adaptation, relationships between parents and schools, including the matter of partnership, and different roles of parents in school environments. Fourteen parents were instructed to write diary entries during the first twelve weeks of their eldest child’s attendance at a public kindergarten in the Czech Republic. Analysis of the data shows that the parents’ perspectives are not sufficiently considered in the process of adaptation in kindergarten. Still, the development of the child’s adaptation, as well as the requirements, expectations and support received from the kindergarten, have a fundamental influence on the establishment of the parent’s role in relation to their child’s school. The parent’s role in the course of the adaptation period is characterized by their interest in their child, their limited willingness to address their problems or their doubts regarding the school, minimization of their initiatives, their reliability in fulfilling operational and material requirements and their basic appreciation and acknowledgment of the school and its limitations.

Abstrakt: Stať se zaměřuje na postoje českých učitelů k vnější diferenciaci žáků (rozdělování žáků do školních tříd a škol na základě jejich schopností a výsledků). Pro analýzu je využito sekundárních dat z reprezentativního šetření 1002 učitelů regionálního školství. Šetření provedla na jaře roku 2009 agentura Factum Invenio pro MŠMT. Nejprve jsou porovnány postoje učitelů k oběma směrům vnější diferenciace, tj. k vytváření samostatných školních tříd pro nadanější žáky a k vytváření speciálních školních tříd pro méně nadané. Na základě konfrontace s dalšími postoji učitelů (např. přístup k žákům a k hodnocení žáků, vnímání učitelské profese, důvody volby pedagogické dráhy) jsou představeny čtyři ideálně-typické sady postojů: tradiční, rozvíjející, pohodlný a pomáhající, které jsou napojeny vždy na jednu z kombinací postojů k oddělování nadanějších a méně nadaných žáků. Klíčová slova: vnější diferenciace, učitelé, postojeCzech teachers' attitudes toward tracking and possible value roots of these attitudes Abstract: The paper focuses on Czech teachers' attitudes toward tracking (separating pupils into groups with different curricula on the basis of their abilities and school results). The analysis is based on secondary data set from 2009 covering 1002 Czech teachers. The survey was realized on spring 2009 by Factum Invenio agency to order of Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. Teachers' attitudes to both low track and high track are compared and confront with other teachers' attitudes and beliefs (such as aproach to pupils and evaluation of pupils, reasons for pedagogical career choice etc.). Four ideal-typical sets of teachers' attitudes are introduced: traditional, enhancing, helpful and easy-going. Each of them is connected to a specific combination of attitudes towards the high and low tracking.

Why teachers do not take child sick leave? Emotional strategies, Micropolitics, and the self-conception of teachers with small children in a Pandemic abstract: Czechia had one of the longest school lockdowns during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Teachers with small children consequently faced a number of emotional dilemmas that primarily stemmed from the conflict between their role as a teacher and their role as a parent, which unfolded in the home as the one and only space in which to perform work, family care, and self-care. The paper is organised around the question of why teachers in this difficult situation did not take advantage of child sick leave, a public policy measure that could have helped them to reduce this conflict and to care for their children and their own mental health. In this study we draw on research into the emotional dimensions of public policies, micropolicies and micropolitics, and the self-conception of teachers. The analysis is based on a data sample of public policy documents, interviews with nine teachers, and discussion threads in a public Facebook group dedicated to teachers. We found that the main reasons teachers did not take child sick leave were their emotionally strongly sense of the imperatives attached to their self-conception as a teacher and supported by the micropolitics of schools, and their perception of child sick leave as representing uncertainty and failure rather than relief. Child sick leave has moreover been recognised as a public policy measure that is anchored in the modern separation of the public (work) and the private (family, care) spheres, which in the conditions of the pandemic crisis revealed its limitations.

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