Suchergebnisse

The results of students at different basic and secondary schools vary largely in the Czech Republic compared to other countries, and there is a strong connection between the results of students and family background. The Czech education system is also highly stratified, and student tracking begins at a young age. In this respect the most controversial element in the system are the multi-year gymnasia, the existence of which is nonetheless strongly supported by the public. This support is based on the conviction that multi-year gymnasia provide the most talented students with a good education, enable more rapid cognitive development for these students, and thus help cultivate Czech elites. This article sets out to verify whether multi-year gymnasia genuinely fulfi l the function associated with them. Hypotheses about the role of multi-year gymnasia are tested using data from the OECD PISA 2000 and OECD PISA 2006 surveys, the PISA-L longitudinal survey, and Higher Education Studies 2004 survey. The main analytic methods used are multi-level modelling and logistic regression.

The theoretical concept of second-order elections has become a useful tool to analyze sub-national and/or supranational elections. This paper tries to apply the concept to the regional elections in the Czech Republic and to challenge the concept by analysis of the personalization of the vote in the regional elections to the assembly of South Moravia in the year 2008. Working with the electoral results (especially with preferential voting), the authors argue that the decisions and preferences of voters were influenced not only by the situation in the main political arena (e.g. by the governing or opposition role of political parties) but also by the composition of party lists, in terms of candidates' connections locally.

This paper focuses on "The Philadelphia Negro": a community study that stands at the start of American social research. This somewhat forgotten empirical study from 1899 describes the historical conditions and the economic and social causes and circumstances behind the formation and existence of the "Seventh Ward", a slum neighbourhood in Philadelphia inhabited by African-Americans. The study used survey and other methods of observation and analysis of historical, economic and social data. The study was written by the erudite Harvard University graduate William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, an African-American, and an economist, historian and sociologist. Using primary and secondary literature and archive sources this paper shows that Du Bois was the author of the first empirical social research study in the United States. It looks at his life, his research, and his opinions on racial issues. He created a programme of research on the African-American population and from 1898 to 1910 he headed the first school of sociology on the American continent at the University of Atlanta. He published the results of scientific analyses of the lives of African-Americans in the south of the United States in sixteen volumes of the Atlanta University Studies. Racial prejudices among the American sociological elites prevented both Du Bois and his work from receiving the attention they rightly deserve.

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 was accompanied by mass enthusiasm. This
wave of enthusiasm (Kriegsbegeisterung) was particularly high in Austro-Hungary. In the regions
where the German population was significantly large crowds thronged the streets singing patriotic
songs such as "Wacht am Rhein", "Heil Dir im Siegeskranz", "The Radecky Marsch", "Prince
Eugene Marsch". They also arranged tributes in front of monuments, state buildings and military
headquarters. Despite the fact that the operation to mobilise the Czech military went smoothly
the German public noticed the lack of enthusiasm amidst the Czech soldiers and consequently the
Czechs were seen as indifferent and even hostile. There was an attempt to promote demonstrations
in Prague as an expression of Czech-German reconciliation. However as these were organised by
the German minority in Prague the Czechs continued in their lack of fervour and viewed the war
as a German one rather than Czech.

Approximately 100 thousand men of Czech origin died during the wartime operations
in the years 1914 to 1918. The majority were aged between 23 and 35. The reproductive losses have
been estimated at another 610 thousand (550 thousand children that were never born due to the
absence of a man in the household and another 60 thousand civilian dead). In 1914 the population
in the Czech territories numbered 10 million 283 thousand, in 1919 this number decreased
to 9 million 921 thousand. The ratio of men to women decreased (in 1920 there were 92.5 men to
every 100 women). This imbalance in age frequency, a result of the low birth rate, had a long term
effect firstly on the number of marriages, then on the birth rate and eventually on the mortality
rate. These long term effects were evidently still present at the close of the 20th Century.