KAPITAŁ SPOŁECZNY W SZKOŁACH

In the article, „social capital” is understood as the ability to cooperate, involvement on behalf of the common good. In the Polish society, lack of skills in this regard is a significant social problem. Could the school prepare students to cooperate, to assume common responsibility? The Polish school culture substantially hinders the development of skills of this type. The barrier encountered is the tradition based on traditional instruction methods, the ways of motivating students to work through competition and individual assessment and a visible distance between teachers and students, which makes it difficult to establish communication between teachers and students. A teacher does not serve as a model of a social worker, either, since in most cases, teachers neither like nor are able to engage in social works. A change in the attitudes and habits at school is a difficult and time-consuming; however, it is possible. We can expect that the attempts made, such as civic education lessons conducted using the active learning methods, as well as activity of various civic associations and foundations will have a positive result in the future.