Introduction

There is a worldwide trend towards decentralization and increasing school autonomy as a means of improving the quality of education. When we look at the situation in present day Europe, the principle of school autonomy is accepted, at least regarding some aspects of management, almost everywhere in the continent (Šolska avtonomija v Evropi…, 2008).

When speaking of the decentralization of education systems, where the care and responsibility for particular organizational and curricular issues is transferred to local communities or to schools themselves, there are significant changes in the very foundations of the education systems as well.

The decentralization of an education system and greater school autonomy therefore affects a school's programs, organization, the situation for staff and pupils, and the educational processes within the school itself. The transfer of responsibilities to a school causes a change in leadership style to one of participative leadership (cf. Bush, 2006; Resman, 2004). The paradigm of a school as a learning organization, and teamwork, are gaining ground (Resman, 2002).

The purpose of this paper is to present one aspect of the above mentioned changes, namely to analyze the role and significance of teamwork in the contemporary school environment. Nowadays, teamwork commonly refers to the daily collaboration between groups of experts in schools or educational institutions. Its social, psychological and pedagogical (didactic, methodical) aspects have been described (cf. Resman, 2005).