Current policies in education that support school choice can be a threat but also an opportunity for rural schools that are often at risk of closure or amalgamation/consolidation. Studies from Western Europe found two types of schools using the 'capitals' of the rural environment in different ways: 'community' and 'magnet' schools. Our…

Czech parents place particular emphasis on ensuring the overall quality of life of their child when choosing a school. Our study shows how rural state schools understand this demand. A mixed approach was used in our research. In the first step, administrative data from all schools in municipalities with a population of up to 3,000 was used to…

Most of the literature on student between-track mobility or school choice examines decision making in comprehensive systems or in tracked general education schools. In this article we present data on inter-school mobility (transfers) of upper secondary students in a differentiated educational system with academic, professional and vocational tiers…

The sphere of early childhood education care (ECEC) in the Czech Republic has diversified enormously in the last decade. The article describes this diversification process and, drawing on focus group data, analyses parents' choices within this diversified realm. Based on the parents' selection criteria (significantly influenced by constraints and…

The paper approaches the issue of school choice in an indirect manner by investigating the effectiveness of public, private government-dependent and private independent schools in 19 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries selected from the PISA 2000 survey for this purpose. In a multilevel approach we estimate these…

This article examines equity in national systems of education in terms of differences in student outcomes, as measured by mathematics achievement scores on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003. The author uses four measures for assessing equity in student outcomes: (1) the strength of the relationship between student…