The study will contribute to the long-standing social scientific debate over the role of culture and institutions in influencing behaviour by looking at the case of family policies. We will conduct interviews with families in the Czech and Slovak Republic, to ascertain how cultural values and state policies influence their decisions about caring for their pre-school children.
Period: 2010-2012
Main applicant: prof. S. Saxonberg, PhD., MU Brno
Co-applicant: PhDr. Hana Maříková, SOÚ AV ČR Praha
Project: Czech Science Foundataion, project no. P404/10/1586
Project publications (total 9, displaying 1 - 9)
Authors of the book reveal and deconstruct seven myths that block open discussion and reforms in the area of childcare policy in the Czech Republic, and formulate the principles of non-discriminatory childcare policy.
In this chapter the authors name seven myths that they have identified in Czech society, which block development of Czech childcare policy.
Based on analysis of historical documents the author deconstructs the myth strongly held in the Czech Republic that nurseries are communist invention, and analyzes their operation in Czechoslovakia before 1989.
The chapter reveals that the myth that children below the age of three do not benefit from quality daycare is not based on current scientific knowledge and that the myth does not exist in all countries.
Public opinion research shows that most Czechs think children should stay at home the first three years. But the situation is more complicated and filled with contradictions.
This chapter presents a short overview of childcare policies implemented in Scandinavian countries, France and Germany, and shows that these policies stem from different ideologies. Based on an institutional analysis the authors then discuss the ways in which Czech conservatives have managed to gain great influence over Czech childcare policy.
This chapter summarizes results of previous analysis that led the authors to identifying and deconstructing seven myths on childcare that prevail in the Czech Republic. Based on arguments introduced in previous chapters this chapter offers also authors´ recommendations to Czech childcare policy.
The area that comprises today’s Czech Republic has a long and rich history of providing childcare facilities to preschool children. Kindergartens continue to be popular to this day and at present almost all Czech children attend these facilities. On the other hand, nurseries nearly vanished in the Czech Republic.
This paper contributes to the debate on the relative impact of institutions or cultural values by analyzing parental attitudes to childcare, i.e. by focusing on the micro level of decisions in families instead of the macro level of political decisions andmeasures regarding childcare. Paper is based on analysis of 40 semi-structured interviews done in Prague and Bratislava withparents having a child in the first class of elementary school.
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