Etnická diferenciace základních škol: příklad města Brna
The ethnic differentiation of elementary schools: Example of the city of Brno

Summary/Abstract: Ethnicity is a fundamental social determinant of educational inequalities in the Czech Republic. It is already manifesting at the level of primary education. The present paper focuses on the question whether Czech primary education shows any segregation tendencies, and whether these tendencies are strengthening or weakening over time. For the purpose of this paper, we work with data from the city of Brno, which has been participating every year since 2006 in a nationwide project that gathers photos of pupils enrolled in first grade of elementary schools. Thanks to the regular attendance in this project (about 80 percent of all Brno schools), this event provides unique data that allow us to map the ethnical composition of first grades of primary schools in Brno. We focus on how the number, size and, above all, the ethnic composition of the first grades in Brno schools vary between 2006 and 2014. The ethnic composition of the classes is examined by the method of external categorization. We employ both univariate and log-linear modeling analyses to explore our data and present our results. Our findings indicate that ethnic differentiation can be observed among Brno primary schools in the selected period and this trend is slightly strengthening. There is a double differentiation of Roma children at the city level. One is structurally conditioned, while the other can be explained by social action.

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