The article presents a review of the research activities of the Socio-Economics of Housing research team. The Socio-economics of Housing team is one of the research teams at the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The main research activities of the team include sociological research concerning attitudes towards housing in the Czech Republic, international comparisons of housing policies and social housing systems, and econometric simulations of policy reforms, like rent deregulation, the introduction of housing allowance and social housing, housing finance, housing market efficiency, and house price indices.
This article analyses the recurring topics in the epistemology of the leading 20th-century French sociologist and political theorist Raymond Aron, drawing on his doctoral dissertation Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire (1938) and on a range of works he published in his later years. The author first discusses six different reasons for Aron's conspicuous absence from many contemporary handbooks on the social sciences: his deliberate avoidance of developing a system in his work, his disinclination towards abstract theoretising, his lack of interest in empirical research, and his refusal to specialise in one field, and also the changes that occurred in the social scientific context in which his work was received and changes in the surrounding political and social circumstances, most notably the collapse of the communist regimes. The author notes that a major feature in Aron's epistemological thought was his neo-Kantian awareness of the limits of strictly scientific knowledge, which he identified with the domain of causal analysis. The second crucial theme, recurring throughout Aron's work, is the indispensability of philosophy for providing the foundations for social scientific analysis, always in need of being positioned with respect to values. His enduring interest in international relations and contemporary history is taken as an indication of the third basic element of his epistemology: a passion for the analysis of singular events. The author concludes that, given his preoccupation with the singular and the particular, the key, albeit somehow implicit, aspect of his epistemology is the capacity for judgment in the Kantian sense.
The secondary and post-secondary schools that provided essential education to just a small percentage of the male population in the first half of the 19th century played an irreplaceable role in the formation of the future elites in early modem society in the Czech lands. The Bishop’s Seminary (founded in 1804), the Philosophy Lyceum (1803) and the Piaristické Gymnasium (1762), operating simultaneously, became a strong attraction for young people from České Budějovice, where the schools were located, and from all of Southern Bohemia and the surrounding areas, who were longing for a higher education. A study of records from chronicles, annual reports, and the study catalogues of these schools made it possible to obtain a better understanding of their significance for the life of the town and this Southern Bohemian region. Between 1800 and 1848, 4909 boys studied at the gymnasium, most of whom were from families of tradesmen and architects, and there was also a large proportion of boys from families of teachers. The school’s catchment area took in České Budějovice, Southern and Southwest Bohemia, and the proportion of students from the rest of Bohemia, Austria, Moravia, and Silesia was much lower. Information on the Philosophy Lyceum provides a very similar picture. Between 1803 and 1846, 2556 students enrolled in the first year of study. In terms of their socio-professional composition the majority of lyceum students were from tradesmen and agricultural families, and from families of public officials and teachers. The lyceum’s catchment area was very similar to that of the gymnasium. The social and territorial composition of the theology students (1618 in total) was very similar to that of the Philosophy Lyceum, which was also from where it received the most students.