Educational environment of schools for sustainable development of rural cultural environment
Educational environment of schools for sustainable development of rural cultural environment

Summary/Abstract: Sustainable development of society depends to a great extent on sustainable development of rural communities and their cultural environment. In Latvia, the sustainability of rural cultural environment can be provided by, first of all, maintaining and then further developing educational environment in rural areas. The aim of this article is to justify the concept of community school and compare, analyse and assess the results of two empirical studies within the context of sustainable development of rural schools, rural communities and rural areas in Latvia. The results of this research indicate that, in order to provide for sustainable development of schools themselves, rural communities and areas in general, rural schools expand their target audience, formal and informal education and training offers, expand the range of their functions by taking additional functions, thus becoming lifelong learning environment providers for the whole rural community. As a result, self-complication and innovation-searching processes can be observed in the educational environment of rural schools. The results of this research show changes in and diversity of educational environment of rural schools, and it lets at least partially solve the issue of balanced development in the urban– rural dimension in Latvia. Models of the Latvian rural schools’ educational environment are categorized into four main groups: 1) traditional educational model of environment; 2) educational environmental model of structural reorganization; 3) multi-functional and multi-structural educational model of environment in the frame of one school; 4) combined educational model of environment.

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