Trust in Educational Settings: Insights and Emerging Research Questions

Figures & data

Table 1. Application of the concept of the trust radius on different levels of education systems.

Level	Application of the radius of trust concept (examples)
Society	Circle of trusted educational practitioners, schools (e.g. across own school, district, state/profession in general) Impact of education on the circle of trusted people across groups with differential strengths of social ties
Region	Circle of trusted people among actors in school districts, educational collaborative networks or in area-based reforms Circle of schools, school leaders that superintendents trust
School/educational institutions	Circle of colleagues that educational practitioners trust Circle of faculty members that educational leaders trust Circle of people that students trust across student groups (e.g. peers, class, class levels, all students)
Classroom	Circle of classmates that students trust Circle of teachers that students trust Circle of students, parents that teachers trust

Table 2. Possible aspects of context for the analysis of trust in education.

Level	Aspects of context
System	Generalized interpersonal and institutional trust Attitudes toward education (OECD, 2018) Culturally specific norms and values (Li, 2008) Political legitimacy, degree of corruption (e.g., Frederiksen et al., 2016)
Educational governance	Sub-state autonomy Autonomy of educational institutions Systems of accountability Educational collaborative networks Support systems
Educational institutions	Student and faculty composition Organizational culture Leadership
Interactions in educational settings	Types of interaction Situational characteristics Asymmetries of power

OECD. (2018). Trust and its determinants: Evidence from the Trustlab experiment. OECD Statistics Working Papers 2018/02. OECD.

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Frederiksen, M., Larsen, C. A., & Lolle, H. L. (2016). Education and trust. Acta Sociologica, 59(4), 293–308. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699316658936

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