A so-called fully organised school of the urban type (Roberts, Green 2013) became a standard in the 20th century for organising the elementary education and teaching principles. Rural schools, in the long term, have been perceived as those with low quality, inappropriate equipment, under limited numbers of students and non-professional teachers compared to the urban schools (Solstad, Andrews 2020). Therefore to this day, many parents in rural municipalities have preferred to enrol their children to more appreciated urban schools, in the case they have the possibility of free school choice (Sherman, Sage 2011). On the other side, not unfrequently, the counter commutation flow has been recognized, since some parents have been finding a different quality of education and they have deliberately chosen a school in rural locality (Ribchester, Edwards 1999). First reason is that a majority in urbanized society started to be so distant from a practice of rural schooling, till negative image of rural schools was complemented by another extreme – an uncritical idyllic idea of peaceful, family institution in pure nature environment (Cuervo 2016). Second reason for rural school choice is that they are not a homogenous group. Also in these areas the parental choice occurs and some schools are preferred to others, though the study of the mechanisms seems to be neglected (Gristy, Hargreaves, Kučerová eds. 2020) and the educational market has rather been a phenomenon studied within an urban space (Raveaud & van Zanten 2007). The differences are among the rural schools themselves, in the environment where they are localized and also the schools´ clients vary in their preferences and parental involvement strategies (Straková, Simonová 2015). Some factors that affect parents' school choice change over time and depend on the country or region-specific context, while other factors seem to be more general and similar internationally. The high demand for a school could be result of either the school´s internal characteristics, like its educational model, curriculum, climate and culture, student composition (ethnic and other) etc., or the external characteristics, like the school location (e.g., relation to transportation facilities) and its surroundings (environment). The preference for a certain school doesn´t have to be related only to a pedagogical quality and school´s prestige (Simonová 2017). A school can be attractive as well if the other aspects crucial for the clients prevail.

The aim of the paper is to investigate and characterize various cases of demand for diverse rural elementary schools on the example of our country, Czechia. The paper is a partial result within the wider research project which complementary part is presented elsewhere within the ECER congress. This paper aims to answer following research questions: What is specific for the rural schools which were identified as demanded? What types of reasons for choice of rural schools do exist? And following them, what cases of demand for schools in rural areas can be distinguished?

In many countries, the image of a school’s quality is strongly influenced by bureaucratic powers through the official score-rankings of schools (Wössmann 2003) as well as by unofficial information about the qualities of the chosen schools (recommendations from friends, own experience) (Ball & Vincent 1998). In Czechia there are no elementary school league-tables based on broadcast unified testing or the other comparable indicators. For these purposes in our research project we chose two indicators collected by the ministry of education. As demanded school we considered that one with a high capacity utilization ratio and simultaneously having a high proportion of students coming to school from outside its formal catchment area. Following these indicators, we classified all Czech schools and then we selected only those schools located in rural municipalities. This quantitative analysis we presented within ECER congress last year 2021. From the set of schools fulfilling the criteria the final research sample of thirteen case study rural schools was selected with utilization of additional data characterizing both their external and internal environment. Subsequent information about appreciated characteristics of the case schools was necessary to obtain from so-called hot-knowledge, from perspective of actors connected with the schools. Research tools for this phase - questionnaires, outlines for the interviews - were developed and they were piloted in two schools. Afterwards, the collected data in case studies included: i) in-depth interviews with the municipal leaders about the way of development and support of school provision, ii) in-depth interviews with principals of the schools about school´s strategy, reasons for school choice, school´s activities etc. together with a complementary analysis of necessary written school documents, iii) on-line survey with all students´ parents of schools in the sample, following by in-depth interviews with two parents from each school to tell the story of their school choice. Transcribed audio-recorded interviews were analysed with support of standard process of qualitative coding. Each transcript was coded by at least two researchers and then the codes were compared sorting out the discrepances. The findings were supported by the results of on-line survey, by researchers´ notes from the field work and by the quantitative data about the schools and their municipalities.

Thirteen schools which we selected as demanded are quite various: from those following sophisticated vision, through those trying on alternative forms of education, to those seem to be “ordinary” without any specialization and ambitious goals. Nevertheless, all the case schools perceived themselves as an alternative to the schools based on achievement, competition, persistent testing and comparison of knowledge. They emphasize mutual respect, transparency, communication, sense for individual needs, cooperation, safety, overlap of education to everyday and community life. The case schools are safety places for students who didn´t succeed in mainstream school, who are creative or gifted, who suffer from work under pressure, or who were bullying in previous school. To sum up, the investigated types of demand for schools in rural areas could be categorized according to following criteria. Predominance of external reasons for demand: - traditional catchment school for rural surroundings with good access by transportation or respecting public transport time-tables in school´s activities - school in attractive environment (nature, chateau area) connected with the school´s curriculum - school in close hinterland of town or city for which the rural school is an alternative to mainstream urban ones Predominance of internal reasons for demand: - school emphasizes on safety and well-being - school applying the alternative pedagogical methods (i.e., Montessori school) - school with inclusive environment

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