Htqe.2022.57

https://doi.org/10.22364/htqe.2022.57 | 800-815 | PDF

The Notion of Sustainable Team in Educational Institution

Anna Kvelde, Indra Odina
University of Latvia, Latvia

Abstract. Sustainability has been a topical issue for more than 20 years not only dealing with environmental/ecological, social/cultural and economic issues. Combining social, economic, and environmental initiatives in education is a complex process that should result in a completely new vision of educational institutions. It raises the necessity for a management structure to encourage and support the sustainability initiatives within the organisation.
The article deals with one aspect of a larger scale and long-term grounded theory research to explore and define the concept of a sustainable team in educational institution. This article answers the research questions on how students are seen and perceived in the education management hierarchy of an educational institution, and what fosters the development of sustainable team in an educational institution. The data were collected by the content analysis of the education management hierarchy structure reflected on 33 homepages of educational institutions; content analysis of 62 students’ teaching practice assignments on the education management hierarchy structure; 12 interviews with school administration on the state of the art of sustainable team. Research sample was 107 educational institutions: 23 primary schools, 66 secondary schools, and 18 state gymnasiums with broad geographical representation – the schools in the capital, cities, small towns, and countryside.
Sustainable team achieves institutional goals and cultivates a culture where collaboration, appreciation, and teamwork are valued. According to the data of the study, there is a misunderstanding of the notion of a sustainable team in educational institutions in Latvia. There is also a lack of evidence of students as meaningful players in how the education management hierarchy is seen and interpreted which slows down the implementation of the sustainability initiatives.

Keywords: education management, students, sustainable team, teamwork, team performance

In: Human, Technologies and Quality of Education, 2022. Proceedings of Scientific Papers = Cilvēks, tehnoloģijas un izglītības kvalitāte, 2022. Rakstu krājums
Riga, University of Latvia, 2022. 1135 p. Ed. L. Daniela
https://doi.org/10.22364/htqe.2022
ISBN 978-9934-18-911-1