CREATING THE GOOD SCHOOL CONCEPT ACORDING TO THE VIEW OF SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PARENTS

Abstract

The research question was raised of how parents of school students understand the concept of the good school and whether they sought the same values of the good school as had been agreed upon by the The Good School Concept and to discuss how it was related to the features of the good school presented in The Good School Concept. The aim of the research was to reveal the active parents’ conception of the good school. This is a qualitative study, based on the methodological approaches of social constructivism. The data was collected in the February-March, 2018. 9 parents of students from different Lithuanian schools participated in the study. The research methods were used: analysis of academic literature and educational documents, structured interviews. The conception of the good school by parents of school students who participated in the research only partially complied with the features defined by the Good School Concept (2015). The parents distinguished these features of the good school by choosing to focus on: 1) school life: student well-being and security, students’ willingness to attend school, teacher student communication; 2) (self-)education and the child’s achievements, progress; 3) the competent teacher; 4) physical environment at school; 5) the whole community participating in the development of the school strategy. The parents did not reveal or name such element necessary for the good school as a learning organization enabling leadership and management; they did not understand or want to see their roles, duties or opportunities as members of the school community. The parents tended to see only clearly visible, obvious external changes in school, did not recognize the importance of the educational environment as one of the essential features of the good school. The parents tended to assume the role of passive observers, people expressing their opinion, critics, but not members of the school community – the creators, the helpers. Parents were not sufficiently aware of their duties as members of the school community and did not fully understand the officially accepted concept of the good school which hinders the development of the Lithuanian good school founded on the ideas of the good school.