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About us
The Institute for Research and Development in Education (IRDE) is a department of the Faculty of Education of Charles University for research, development and educational activities in the field of educational sciences. It continues the tradition of a scientific research department that was founded at the Faculty of Education in 1990 and in which leading Czech and foreign experts worked, including Jiří Kotásek, Jan Průcha, Ladislav Čerych, Josef Mestenhauser and others.
In the 1990s, the Institute made a significant contribution to the design of educational transformation, the formation of national educational policy strategies and the preparation for entry into the common European education area. It was an expert and editorial office in the preparation of the Green Book and the White Book of Czech Education (1998–2000). The Institute initiated the establishment of the Czech Association for Pedagogical Research (1993) and participated in the organization of the 8th WCCES Congress (1992), which opened international cooperation and the development of comparative pedagogy in the Czech Republic.
Since 1998, the institute has had its current name. It strengthens its focus on comparative, quantitative and qualitative empirical research, develops its methodology, and participates in international networks and projects. It closely cooperates with the Ministry of Education, state administration bodies, and non-profit organizations to improve the quality of school education, professionalize teachers, and introduce innovations into educational practice.
Funding sources
The Institute is financed both from the institutional support of the Faculty of Education of Charles University and from funds obtained in competitions for scientific projects, both national and international. The basic sources of funding in the past thus came from the following sources:
- institutional support of the Faculty of Education, Charles University
- Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MŠMT) of the Czech Republic – Basic Research Center Program
- Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GA CR)
- International research projects funded by the European Commission (Lifelong Learning Programme, Socrates 6.1.2 programme)
- European Structural Funds of the Czech Republic
Our foreign partners
We have long-term cooperation with experts from many foreign institutions. The institutions listed below are examples of long-term cooperation in the form of joint international research, internships, participation in seminars and conferences, and joint publications. In alphabetical order, we mainly cooperate with the following institutions:
- Centre for Equity in Education, University of Manchester, United Kingdom;
- Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, Čína;
- German Institute for International Educational Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany;
- Institute of School Administration, University of Mons -Hainaut, Belgium;
- National Institute for Educational Research, Lyon, France;
- Institute of International Education, Stockholm University, Sweden;
- Matej Bel University, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia.
Educational activity
The focus of the pedagogical activity of the Institute’s staff is in the area of doctoral studies in the field of pedagogy, both by supervising doctoral students and by teaching courses for doctoral students with an emphasis on educational research methodology, comparative pedagogy and sociology of education. Within the framework of bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, the Institute’s staff participate in teaching the fields of pedagogy, psychology and school management and offer a number of elective courses, including courses in English, also attended by foreign students as part of Erasmus internships.
Research activity
The Institute for Educational Research and Development carries out its scientific activities primarily within the framework of research projects obtained in domestic and international grant competitions, in multidisciplinary cooperation with institutions in the Czech Republic and abroad. The Institute conducts empirical research on school education using both quantitative and qualitative research methods and their appropriate combination, with an emphasis on longitudinal and panel studies.
The IRDE’s research focuses on a wide range of topics, primarily in the following areas:
- the passage of pupils and students through the education system, choice of school and transitions between educational levels with an emphasis on the selectivity of the education system in the Czech Republic;
- determining educational outcomes from pre-school to general secondary and vocational education;
- inequalities in education, the influence of social and economic status, gender and ethnicity on educational outcomes;
- secondary analyses of data from international surveys of educational outcomes (e.g. TIMSS, PIRLS, PISA, ICCS, TALIS) and critical evaluation of their impacts on the formation of national education policies;
- determining the quality and effectiveness of schools and the possibilities of linking internal (internal school evaluation – self-evaluation) and external evaluation (inspection activities and external testing);
- research on teachers with an emphasis on identifying their attitudes and beliefs, evaluating teachers’ working conditions and opportunities for their further professional growth;
- transformation of education systems in Central and Eastern European countries after the fall of the Iron Curtain;
- assessment of pupils and students and development of formative assessment;
- theory and curriculum development.
Since 2007, the IRDE, in cooperation with the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University, has been editing the international peer-reviewed journal Orbis scholae with texts in Czech, Slovak and English. The journal is indexed in a number of international databases, including the Scopus database (www.orbisscholae.cz).