ABSTRACT
Ostrava is the second largest urban agglomeration in the Czech Republic, located in the Moravian-Silesian region in the north-eastern part of the country and formerly known for its iron and steel production. I talked with a group of six 12 to 14-year-olds in a Gymnazium. Vincenc L ( 13) lived with his mother, a shop assistant. Verushka V’s ( 12) parents were a shop manager and a teacher, and Eliška S ( 13) described her father as a trader, assisted by her mother. Milan P’s ( 12) father was a ‘manager’, his mother a trader; Zora S’s ( 14) father was an electrician and her mother a production planner. Rostislava K’s ( 12) father was unemployed, and she described her mother simply as an ‘official’.
