| Abstract [eng] |
The work carried out the theoretical analysis of a school’s as a social organization’s image building and management. There was raised the hypothesis that a social pedagogue, working in school, can lead to changes in the school image, convey social institution identity to the public, community and targeted groups and shape a supportive public opinion. Given the fact that the image building and improvement policy of a school as a social organization is still relatively new and fragmented, a number of topical issues were raised: What is the real possibility of a social pedagogue to contribute to the image changes of a school, as a social organization? How can the quality of socioeducational services help shape the identity of the school? May the favourable image of the school lead to its survival? The study objective was to provide image building and improvement opportunities highlighting the school’s, as a social organization’s, image factors. Questionnaire survey method was designed to determine teachers and parents' views on factors that determine the school image and to analyse social pedagogue’s opportunities in shaping the school image. Semi-structured interview method was used to reveal the school administration’s attitudes towards the school image building and improvement and to learn how the social pedagogue’s role in shaping the school image is evaluated by the school administration. The content analysis method was used to analyse and summarize the data of the interview. Through the SWOT method, the strategic analysis of the documents of the selected school was carried out, in order to assess the main obstacles of the favourable school image building and to provide direction to improve the image. The study included three Šiauliai general education schools with 128 teachers and 121 students' parents and one representative of Šiauliai District X gymnasium administration. The strategic documents of one X school were analyzed. The empirical part aims to consider the possibilities of a social pedagogue in shaping the changes of the school image. It also seeks to clarify teachers, parents and school administration's attitude to the school’s, as a social organization’s, image factors, and aims to provide the opportunities of the school image building and improvement. The most important empirical findings of the study: 1. The hypothesis that the social pedagogue, working in school, can lead to changes in the school image, convey social institution identity to the public, community and targeted groups and shape a supportive public opinion was confirmed. 2. After the analysis of scientific literature, it was found that there is no unified and inclusive concept for the image of the organization. The organization image is built and managed through its identity, which is based on personality. The main components of personality parts are the following: a visual identity, communication and culture. 3. After carrying out the comparative analysis it can be assumed that one of the main objectives of the schools as social organizations which seek to work effectively and make efforts to establish themselves and to secure their survival, should be shaping a favourable image. 4. After summarizing the obtained study results the main obstacles for a favourable school image building were determined, image building and management tools were provided, and recommendations and project design was made for the improvement of the school image. |
