Parents’ Attitudes Toward Primary School Choice: The Grounded Theory Approach

Abstract

In the Czech Republic, school choice enables a strong differentiation of educational pathways even at primary school level. Children at the age of 5 or 6 years undergo an enrollment procedure prior to compulsory schooling. The nature of the procedure is exclusively the responsibility of the school management. In many schools, the testing of cognitive abilities is a part of the procedure. The likelihood that decision-makers will abolish school choice or differentiation at primary school level is negligible. Nevertheless, heterogeneity in primary schools might be an important prerequisite for social cohesion. Therefore, it is vital to have primary school classes that are as heterogeneous as possible.

In such settings, parents’ attitudes to school choice are essential. It is important to know which arrangement is valuable enough for highly educated and well-off parents to choose a local school instead of a selective school. This case study provides an opportunity to look at the grounded theory approach to studying parents’ attitudes and the way they are formed. Apart from describing methods that could be fruitful for gaining valuable data from interviews, it points out the importance of deductive reasoning in the grounded theory approach.

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