Latvian Teachers on Primary School Pupils' Social Sustainability

The aim of the study is to explore teachers’ view about a social responsibility of primary school teachers and pupils’ social sustainability as viewed by the teachers. Social sustainability defines responsible and wise decision making at present as a significant precondition for development of a sustainability-oriented society in the future, the bases of which is an efficient individual’s, society’s and environments’ interchange. Personal and a social competence is a significant component of social sustainability that fosters possibilities of each pupil’s individual development and interrelatedness, by providing solutions to the problems that arise in the pedagogical process. Research methodology used for the purpose of the study are focus group interviews (n = 45) that involve 234 teachers from all over Latvia. Research results indicate that teachers while expressing their opinion about the contemporary primary school children create a profile of their social sustainability. Among the most significant features of a profile of contemporary pupils, the teachers have mentioned such pupils’ values which are not acceptable for them. This indicates that teachers cannot trust and accept children’s role as equal partners in the learning process. This situation may create problems in reorienting education towards a competency-based learning process. Therefore, the authors have analyzed the opportunities for the teachers’ professional development by paying a deeper attention to an intergenerational relation in the context of social sustainability.