Švietimas: politika, vadyba, kokybė /Education Policy, Management and Quality

111

Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, SPVK/EPMQ, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2017

114-131

Authors: Birutė Šilėnienė, Viktorija Koblova

The regaining of Lithuania’s independence has broadly opened its borders to emigration of compatriots. Various reasons make Lithuanians leave their homeland and look for happiness abroad. Recently, more and more people are discussing about Lithuanian families’ immigration to Scandinavian countries, and in particular to Norway. Therefore, the problem of this article is based on the notion, that the families of Lithuanian emigrants and their children who are in a foreign country, in a foreign social environment, must adapt and integrate. However the problems they face require not only help of family members and other relatives, but also state intervention and assistance which is not is always effective or insufficiently implemented to provide full benefits to immigrants. On the other hand, it can be assumed that immigrants are not sufficiently interested to get the benefits from the assistance and services that those institutions can provide. Therefore, this study examined the main problems of the integration of Lithuanian immigrant children in Norway and what actions of Lithuanian immigrants are leading to successful integration of their children. Experiences of the study of the integration of Lithuanian emigrant families and children in Norway revealed that at the beginning of integration, despite immigration positivity’s (a better education system, better perspectives for the future of children), problems such as language barriers, negative attitudes towards them, ignorance of the functioning of the social system are encountered. These problems could be avoided by the need to learn the Norwegian language quickly, using relatives, friends and neighbors and local communities, actively communicating and cooperating with educational institutions, participation in public life and the support of certain state social institutions.

141-150

Authors: Reda Poneliene, Danguole Dargiene

The concept of a Good School creates preconditions for raising the level of quality of the performance of the country’s schools implementing general curricula, for showing the activity direction for schools and for enabling them to act. In order to ensure the quality of pre-school education, self-evaluation of the performance of pre-school education institutions, which promotes reflection on the activities of the staff of pre-school educational institutions and the possibilities for changes in quality, acquires increasing importance. Following the position that self-evaluation of the quality of institutional activities is significantly affected by community agreements on the quality of education and its characteristics, the qualitative research (case study), aiming to find out which aspects of the Good School and features characterizing them are characteristic to a concrete pre-school education institution, was conducted. The study involved various interest groups (parents, children, pedagogues). It was identified that the characteristic features of a good nursery school had included the aspects of the educational environment, life in the school and staff, which enabled to assume that the properly selected educational environment and professional, qualified pedagogues influenced children’s quality participation in the life of the educational institution. Besides, the research results can be the basis for improvement of the educational practice in a particular institution, separately analysing those aspects of the good school (nursery school) and features describing them which received less attention of investigated persons and providing guidelines for further studies on the quality of education.

160

Authors: Editorial Board

End page, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2017