Understandings of Character and Virtue Education in Riga: Main Findings

Toward Effective Family-School Partnerships for Implementing Character Education at School in Latvia: A Multifactorial Model

“…) is one more pivotal precondition for effective family-school partnerships to implement character education. Several efforts are being done for systematically improving academic staff competence for character education, such as the teacher training program 'Arete catalyst' (Arete Catalyst, 2019;Fernández González et al, 2020;, based on a preliminary research of best practices, expectations and needs in the field of character education (Surikova & Pigozne, 2018;Surikova et al, 2020;Verdeja Muñiz & García-Sampedro Fernández-Canteli, 2018), and the program for supporting principals' leadership for character education in Latvian schools (Fernández-González, 2020), elaborated in the frame of the postdoctoral project 'Arete-school' (Fernández-González, 2019). The provision of competence enhancement programs for parents in Latvia in the field of character education should be investigated in more detail, in particular inquiring whether and how existing programs for young parents contribute to establish a sustainable school-family collaboration in this field.…”

A Feasibility Study of a Teachers’ Professional Development Program for Character Education in Latvia

“…In order to respond to this need, in 2018-2019 a team of academics and practitioners and policy makers from Latvia, Estonia and Spain elaborated the transnational teacher training program 'Arete catalyst' (in Greek, it means 'facilitator of character') (Arete Catalyst, 2019;. The program was based on the theoretical framework for character education in schools (The Jubilee Centre, 2017) and on a preliminary research of best practices, expectations, and needs in the field of character education in those countries (Surikova & Pigozne, 2018;Surikova et al, 2020;Verdeja Muñiz & García-Sampedro Fernández-Canteli, 2018), which was carried out within the Erasmus+ project 'Supporting teachers for developing intra-personal competencies and character education at school − Arete Catalyst'. In 2019, this program was adapted to the socio-cultural context of Latvia and piloted by the University of Latvia as a professional competence development program called 'Improving pedagogues' transversal competencies for promoting students' character education and excellence' (see Appendix).…”