In the first wave of CZEPS, we also explored students’ attitudes towards the principles of distributive justice. We asked them when the distribution of resources (e.g. income or wealth) in society is fair. The graph shows the association between the category of education and agreement with the statement that “Society is fair when hard-working people earn more than others”. In other words, this graph analyzes how the field of study and attitude towards meritocracy are related. The responses of 22,782 students show that meritocracy has the highest support among students at comprehensive high schools, called “gymnasiums” in the CR. Specifically, a total of 63 % of gymnasium students agreed with the statement. In contrast, meritocracy has the lowest support among students at vocational schools, where only about one-third of the respondents (35 %) agreed with the statement. Almost half of vocational school students expressed no opinion (neither agree nor disagree). Overall, it seems that gymnasiums attract more meritocratic students. In future waves of CZEPS, it will be interesting to see if support for meritocracy among gymnasium students increases over time.
