This master thesis deals with changes in teacher's professional commitment after the Czech curriculum reform. This thesis works with official papers about reform, the papers about profession of teacher and articles connected with the professional commitment and with commitment changes. The empirical research focused on seven interviews with teachers from comprehensive schools.

The paper is a review of contemporary theoretical and curricular approaches to sexual minorities in education. It analyses the curricula documents, the theoretical bases of access to (sexual) minorities in education in the Czech Republic and relevant documents available in English-speaking countries on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender-related (LGBT). Document analysis was performed using the "snowball" method. The aim is to analyse the situation in the Czech Republic and compare it with results from abroad, then there are the proposed recommendations for the curriculum revision. The conclusion brings a list of materials and their contents in the Czech Republic and a comparison with foreign materials written in English. KEYWORDS curriculum analysis, minorities, LBGT, Czech Republic

TITLE: Psychological and Epistemological Aspects of Curriculum Design AUTHOR: Dominik Dvořák DEPARTMENT: Department of Primary Education, Charles University in Prague SUPERVISOR: Prof. PhDr. Vladimíra Spilková, CSc. ABSTRACT: The alarming trends in Czech pupils' achievement in reading, mathematics and science raised the question of quality of the Czech primary and lower secondary school curricula. A conceptual framework for analysis of the intended curriculum as a multi-level document has been devised. A review of available methods for curricular analysis is presented. The mixed method research design has been used to study the actual Czech curricular framework. Preliminary exploration of quantitative data on Czech pupils' success rates in individual items of TIMSS and PISA studies identified the "suspect" curriculum areas for the subsequent qualitative analysis. These areas (e.g. fractions in mathematics, reading literacy in language arts) were compared in past and present Czech curricula/syllabi. The international benchmarking method was used to compare Czech, English, Finnish, and U. S. curricula. The results revealed the idiosyncrasies that remain relatively stable feature of the Czech curricula. The neo-institutionalism may provide the theoretical explanation of the results of the analysis. KEYWORDS:...

This diploma thesis Extensive reading - Position and Practices of Using Graded Readers in Prague Grammar schools and Students' Attitudes to a Particular Programme presents the phenomenon of extensive reading. It looks into its history, theoretical grounding, the existing body of empirical research, graded readers and benefits for English language teaching and learning. The analytical part gives reasons for the contrast between the great potential of extensive reading for the student's improvement on the one hand, and the implementation which has been infrequent and often at odds with the principles on the other. To find the reasons, the theoretical part analysed the situation of the English language teaching in countries which had implemented extensive reading into the curriculum. In the research part it assesses the scale and the practices of using graded readers in all relevant grammar schools in Prague. In the second part of the survey of grammar schools, it focuses on a grammar school in Mělník, which has been systematically using GRs. It examines the students' attitudes towards the practices of reading GRs in order to assess the potential and the limits of the European Union financed project I read, you read, we read. Key words: Extensive reading, Methodology of English Teaching, Implicit...

This thesis "The topic of Middle Ages within a historical curriculum of the educational area Humans and their world" deals with the issue of children's development of historical thinking and its usage in the historical teaching, which is focused on Middle-Ages, at primary school. The theoretical part of this thesis aims at the educational area Humans and their world, its development through history and its analysis. This educational area is compared with teaching of historical topics at primary school involved in selected foreign educational curriculums. The theoretical part deals with historical thinking and psychological theories. The practical part of this thesis depicts set up and realization of thematic unit which is focused on the period of the house of Přemyslovci. This thematic unit aims at the development of historical thinking competence, which should be achieved by completion of particular goals. These goals focus on working with sources, various interpretations of historical events and also on deepening of pupil's relationship to history. At the end of this thesis, the thematic unit is assessed. KEY WORDS historical thinking, Humans and their world, foreign school curriculums, thematic topic, house of Přemyslovci, pupil of primary school age

The objective of the dissertation thesis is to examine selected problems in the education of secondary level music teachers that influence their professional performance, in the context of current social and education policies of the Czech Republic and the Republic of Austria. The specific issues addressed are: career benefit system, professional standards of teachers, ageing of teachers' population, social and economic status of teachers and feminisation in schools. A comparative analysis of the university curricula for undergraduate music teacher training both in the Czech Republic and the Republic of Austria forms part of the dissertation thesis. The practical research part presents the results of the research questionnaire survey of opinions of the music education university students and graduate teachers on their university training, motivation to be a teacher and depicts their problems at the beginning of their teacher's career. In conclusion, the selected problems of music teacher education are viewed by university teachers and administration workers by means of semi- structured interviews.