Cooperation needed indeed? School leaders' opinions.
Grzegorz Mazurkiewicz, Joanna Trzópek-Paszkiewicz, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Abstract
Cooperation is crucial in educational context. Erikson says that „cooperation is the fundamental key of human development" (Erikson, 2013, cc. 26-27). Schools are treated as institution responsible for preparing young people to be self-regulated and responsible human being able to cooperate for sake of their own development (Mazurkiewicz, 2014). Head teachers as school leaders initiate and organize these processes. Sennett thinks that cooperation requires the competences, especially social competences - dialogical competences (good hearing each other, finding common views, conflict management etc.) (Sennett, 2013). The paper presents results of research showing how school heads perceive their competencies, that will be taken as a starting point for designing proposals of new type of training for school leaders in Poland. More than 2800 principals of different types of schools were asked to assess their competencies in six broad areas. The research aim of this paper is to analyze perception of cooperation by the principals. Research shows that competences related to cooperation are important for principals and they declare their possession. We can conclude as well that cooperation with other entities is more important for principals of school located in smaller cities and in villages.
Keywords: cooperation, educational leadership, competences, principals, research