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ABSTRACT
This study examined the relationship between trust and collaboration in urban elementary schools, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods. Trust was defined as one party's willingness to be vulnerable to another based on the confidence that the latter is benevolent, reliable, competent, honest, and open. This model of trust received empirical support through both factor analysis and qualitative data analysis. Faculty trust in four referent groups was explored - trust in the principal, trust in colleagues, trust in students, and trust in parents. For the elementary school sample used in this study, trust in students was statistically indistinguishable from trust in parents. Interview data supported this finding - teachers reported that they extended trust to parents based on their perceptions of the trustworthiness of students. Canonical correlation demonstrated that the overall level of trust in schools was much more strongly influenced by the socioeconomic status of students than by either racial diversity or student mobility. Concerning trust in other teachers, interview data suggested that teachers may make two simultaneous and relatively independent judgments - personal trust, based on expectations of what is owed to one as a fellow human being, and professional trust, based on expectations of others as professional colleagues.
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Trust was found to be related to the level of collaboration with teachers and with parents on school-level decisions. Canonical correlation revealed that the level of trust in students and parents was powerfully related to the overall level of collaboration in a school. Trust was also related to other important social processes within schools. In schools where the level of trust was high, communication flowed freely, and teachers went well beyond the minimum requirements of their contractual agreements. In low-trust schools, teachers reported constrained communication networks, colleagues who cut corners on their obligations to the children and the school, and a proliferation of rules that interfered with the smooth functioning of the school.
