The question of the formation of children’s collective is one of the most important problems of education in the Pioneer Organisation. In the first part of the article the author challenges the argument that children’s collective is being formed at school on the basis of common classroom work, which is the most important occupation of the pupil. On the contrary she upholds the opinion that children’s collective is mostly formed in the out-of-school activities of the pupils. The Pioneer Organisation as an out-of-school organisation has extraordinary opportunities for forming children’s collective. A collective may be regarded as the summit in the hierarchy of social structures. The term »collective«, however, is often used inaccurately as a name also for those social formations that do not possess the qualities of a collective. An average class at school in most cases is not a collective in the real sense of the word. It is not necessary to follow the formation of a collective together with the rise of a lower social structure. The basic essential condition for the formation of children’s collective, which is to be considered in the first place, is the content of the collective’s activities, which determines to a certain extent also its organisational structure. The organisational structure is also a necessary condition for the formation of a collective, but it is dependent on the collective’s activities.
The other part of the article deals with the results of intensive orientation investigations in two 5th grades, and the choice of research methods is accounted for.