For his consistent contribution to sociology and education, he received numerous awards, such as Ordre des Palmes Académiques[2][3] or Golden Medal of Masaryk University.

[7] After an obligatory army service (1959-1961), Petrusek became a professor of philosophy and formal logic at Pedagogical Institute in Zlín (Gottwaldov at the time), but actively worked in sociology, a limited field in 1950s Czechoslovakia.

During short time of liberalization, the Prague Spring, Petrusek earned his doctoral degree (1966) and worked at the Institute of Social-Political Sciences at Charles University.

Shortly after 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, in 1970, Petrusek was expelled from the communist party and banned by the communist regime from publishing and actively pursuing research during the whole period of normalization until the end of communism in 1989, except one book, the Introduction to Study of Sociology, a textbook published in 200 copies by Charles University.

[10] Soon after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Petrusek habilitated himself as a Docent of Sociology (1990) at Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University.