Before the focus on trauma, however, trust was described as
an essential part of strong and supportive school cultures. The solid body of
research around trust has also shown it as integral to effective organizational
change, successful school reform efforts, transformative educational
leadership, and much more. As author Barbara Smith
writes,
“Trust...is the beginning place, the foundation upon which more can be built.”
The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of trust from the
beginning place, with the goal of finding a common understanding of trust and
identifying the research-based ways to increase trust in places where our
children and young people live and learn. Unlike many articles that highlight
recent research, this article focuses on a few seminal pieces on trust and the
work of researchers who paved the way for current research on student
engagement and more.
What Is Trust?
Dr. Megan Tschannen-Moran, Professor of Education at William
and Mary, has studied trust for over 20 years and defines trust
this way: “One
party’s willingness to be vulnerable to another based on the confidence that
the other is benevolent, reliable, competent, honest, and open” (2004). Probing
deeper into that definition, trust is understood as a two-fold process. Trust
first involves a choice to be vulnerable to another, to acknowledge the
potential for being hurt by that person. The second part of placing trust in
another is perceiving that person to be of good will, genuine, accepting, and
capable. Both the choice to be vulnerable to another and the perception of the
benevolence of another are necessary to build trust.
Building the trust needed for healthy and supportive schools
and agencies requires shifting this interpersonal concept to an organizational
perspective. This is not the trust established around an institution and its
purpose, rather it is relational trust, a set of interdependencies among people
within the organization. Relational trust is found in social exchanges and is
reflected by respect, personal regard, competence, and personal integrity (Bryk
& Schneider, 2003). To explain, respect is evident through deep
listening, perspective-taking, and acknowledgment, and personal regard refers
to a perceived willingness to go beyond established expectations. Competence in
core role responsibilities inspires faith that desired outcomes will be
realized, and personal integrity reflects a set of moral-ethical standards that
guide behavior. Relational trust allows for collective decision making, shared
ownership, and more. As Professors
Anthony
Bryk and Barbara Schneider (2003) explain: "relational
trust is the connective tissue that binds individuals together to advance the
education and welfare of students" (p. 45).
When thinking about school reform, organizational change,
and culture building, establishing trust should be a deliberate and transparent
process. Through their research on school change, Bryk and Schneider (2003)
identified several conditions that foster relational trust in schools. First,
building leaders play a crucial role in strengthening relational trust by
setting the standards for behavior and reflecting the respect, personal regard,
competence, and integrity found in relational trust. Second, teachers must be
acknowledged as the crucial element in engaging parents; in order to build
relational trust with parents, they must be supported and empowered in this
effort. Other conditions that Bryk and Schneider suggest are smaller school
communities that allow for more face-to-face interactions with central
leadership, stable school communities where staff have longevity within
buildings, and voluntary association, meaning that students and their families
have some school choice and school officials avoid forced building assignments.
Research on Trust in Schools
In studying the role of educational leadership on effective
school change, Karen Seashore Lewis (
2007),
focused specifically on the importance of trust at the high school level. She
was able to expand the previous work of Bryk and Schneider (2003) which focused
on elementary schools and found that complex change was likely to occur in high
schools where teachers had high levels of trust in their administration. These
teachers noted integrity as the most important aspect for that trust.
Among
other recommendations, Lewis suggests pre-assessment and monitoring of trust
levels during a change process and teacher involvement and ownership in
decision making. One important finding is the need for trust within the
teaching staff. She notes that teachers who do not trust each other “cannot
work together effectively to create systemic change” (Lewis, 2007, p. 19).
Hoy and Tschannen-Moran (
2007)
studied the impact of staff trust on school culture and climate with findings
that are important to consider in current trust-building efforts. First, they
found that trust is spread throughout a building, meaning that in schools where
teachers trust their administrators, they also tend to trust each other and to
trust their students. This also works in places of distrust, where “broken
trust is likely to ripple through the system” (p. 109). When thinking about
both parent and student engagement, these researchers found that distinguishing
the difference in trust of parents and students was impossible. In short, when
teachers trust students, they also trust parents, and vice versa, leading the
researchers to consider students and their families as one entity.
The final study
highlighted here is The Colorado Trust (2008) study. The report
Build
Trust, End Bullying, and Improve Learning describes the impact of a
school and community bullying prevention initiative that touched the lives of
over 50,000 students. The report cites increases in academic achievement and
highlights the critical role of adults in effective bullying prevention. With
particular attention to the impact of trust, however, students reported the
importance of teachers and administrators showing genuine concern about student
issues and being knowledgeable about and appropriately responding to issues of
bullying. These students self-reported the aspects of trust that Bryk and
Schneider (2003) describe: respect, personal regard, competence in roles, and
integrity.
Final Thoughts
Before the current focus on trauma-informed approaches,
there was ample research confirming that the most successful school reform
efforts have evidence of strong relational trust. In these efforts, trust
will be found across school buildings and will be identified within student
populations, across the school and district staff, between schools and their
parents, and so on. Building trust is a deliberate and transparent process that
requires continuing monitoring and adjustment. By looking at trust as the
beginning place, it remains a part of the foundation of all efforts to improve
the health and well-being of students and their families.
References
Hoy, W., &
Tschannen-Moran, M. (2007). The conceptualization and measurement of faculty
and trust in schools (pp. 87-114). In W. Hoy and M. DiPaola (Eds.) Essential
ideas for the reform of American schools. Charlotte, NC: Information Age
Publishing.
Tschannen-Moran,
M. (2004). Trust matters: Leadership for successful schools. Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass.
More Information
Social Media Director, International Bullying Prevention
Association (
IBPAWorld.org)
Advanced Trauma Practitioner and Trainer, Starr Commonwealth
(
www.starr.org)
Student Safety and Well-Being Consultant, Oakland Schools
(Waterford, Michigan)
Licensed Trainer and Certified Practitioner for the
International Institute for Restorative Practices (
IIRP.edu)
Email: julie.mcdaniel@oakland.k12.mi.us
