(CZ) Příspěvek k typologii středoškolské třídy
(EN) A Contribution to the Typology of a Secondary School Class

This paper further develops a previous article on the characteristic features of a secondary school class, and it aims at singling out the typical features of a class as a social group in a pedagogical situation. On the basis of a factor analysis carried out by means of the IBM 7040 machine using the firm's programme VARIAX with orthogonal rotation, it aims at presenting a quantitatively based typology of classes with the use of a limited number of signs. The first unrotated factor expresses the dependence of the school performance and the social climate of each class on the educational climate represented by the appraisal of the social and pedagogical aspect of the teacher in charge of the class and the team of teachers teaching in the class. The authors call it a syndrome of the balance of class features with a balanced educational climate. This balance made itself felt both in the positive and in the negative sense. Only in classes of the 1st year the positive features of the class prove to be relatively independent of the pedagogical factors. What stood out more distinctly in the first factor after the rotation was the connection between the personality of the teacher in charge of the class, especially its social aspect, and the level of social relationships in the class, which again confirms the hypothesis of the character of the class being reproduced by the personality of the teacher in charge. The second factor after the rotation shows a connection between the indicators of the study morale and absenteeism on the one hand and the level of mutual influence in the class on the other. It is interpreted as spontaneous keenness of the class. The pedagogical factors in it recede to the background. The socially emotional as well as the intellectual level of the class are in a rather negative relationships to this factor. The third rotated factor pointed out the connection between the social and pedagogical personality traits of the teachers involved and the influence of a certain line-up of teachers on the level of the pupils’ results and the social atmosphere of the class. The fourth rotated factor is almost identical with the intellectual level of the class and indicates a positive relationship to the pedagogical level of the teachers and the sociometric characteristics of the class, and a negative relationship to the motivation of school performance. It characterizes the type of class with a positive atmosphere and a relaxed attitude to school duties. The fifth rotated factor confirmed the inter-dependence between bad school performance and the positive social climate of the so-called lazy classes with ≫good parties≪ sticking together. This relationship made itself felt also in the reversed sense, the relationship between an incohesive class and the school performance. The factor analysis has indicated that it is possible to support the experience of pedagogical practice statistically, to find out connections allowing a more realistic view of the good classes as well as the bad ones, to predict their future development, and to allow competent pedagogical action to be taken to regulate this development.