CHILDREN’S VOICE AND DECISION MAKING IN INSTITUTIONAL CARE IN LATVIA

Promotion of Positive Behaviour and Social Emotional Development in Institutional Care

Personnel working in institutional care have the important role of providing for the development of children who have experienced the trauma of being separated from their families. Personnel need to be emotionally responsive, able to form consistent, trusting, and long-term relationships with children, believe in them, support them in continuing education, and have high expectations for them. Despite these facts, there is no Latvian legal requirement for personnel working in institutional care to have a pedagogical education. This article describes the implementation of two professional in-service training programs: “Promotion of Positive Behaviour in Children with Institutional Care Experi…

Student Mentoring in the Master Programme “Pedagogy”: the case of University of Latvia

There is a developing interest in mentoring and tutoring in the higher education in Latvia. Mentoring is looked at as a retention strategy to support students to remain and continue studies and as a tool to prevent students’ drop out from the university. Since academic year 2016/2017 several programmes of tutoring and mentoring in basic studies (bachelor level studies)have been developed and financially supported at the University of Latvia, but so far mentoring has not been used for Master level students. The Master program “Pedagogy” includes a theoretical course “Methods of Mentoring at the Educational Institution”. Since academic year 2018/2019 new tasks were introduced for the second y…

Key challenges for Latvian teachers in mainstream schools: a basis for preparing teachers for inclusion

This paper analyses current research in Latvia to identify key issues related to inclusive education, special education and social pedagogy. A review of Latvian literature since 2004 was undertaken to determine what is known about special and inclusive education, how it is reflected in various research papers and how it related to the current situation in schools. Key findings suggest that teachers need to be better informed about the potential of inclusion. They need to be prepared to teach children with diverse educational needs in a changing educational landscape. Teacher education for inclusion is identified as a 21st-century priority in Latvia.