Reading a bunch of trust papers…

It’s time to read all the open tabs on trust so I can close at least some of them! Quick summaries below.

In their article “Trusting the student: Learner-centered education”, Gunderman & Wood (2004) call for teacher trust in students as foundation for learner-centred education. They suggest that teachers indirectly communicate trust in students when they allow for learner autonomy, believe students, and don’t police them. But does it matter whether the trust is real or the students just feel trusted? (Along the lines of the name tent paper: it didn’t matter whether teachers actually knew students’ names as long as students felt that they were trying to learn them…)

In “A grounded model of how educators earn students’ trust in a high performing US urban high school”, Demerath et al. (2022) investigate what staff members at a US high school, who were nominated by students because they had helped them feel they belonged in school, believed and did to build that trust. They found that teachers imagine a list of unspoken student questions and respond to them:

• Why are they (the teachers) here? -> Teachers want to make a difference in students’ lives, for example because of their moral purpose “doing the right thing for kids” or attitudes “liking kids”
• How much do they know and care about me? -> Teachers want to understand the challenges the students face and compassionately take their perspective
• How much do they respect me? -> Teachers show optimistic beliefs in student capabilities and practice a growth mindset, e.g. not judging students, not unnecessarily criticizing students, and “trusting students with knowledge of teacher’s out of school lives” (my emphasis)
• How real are they? Do they know who they are in relation to me? -> Teachers demonstrate self-awareness related to identity, e.g. race and class
• Do they know how to help me learn? -> Teachers create community, belonging and positive affect, build student academic engagement (e.g. through charisma or humor to “hook” students), practive equity pedagogy and provide “safe spaces”
• How close are they willing to get to me? What are they willing to do to help me? -> Teachers demonstrate patience, emotional proximity, and willingness to invest emotional labour.

Side note: Demerath et al. (2022) bring the story of the lemon tree that doesn’t grow well (similar to Sehoya’s ducks who live in one pond but not the other) to show how ridiculous it is to blame the tree for not growing well when we didn’t take good care of it (or the ducks to avoid environments where they aren’t treated well) and I always think what a great analogy it is!

In conclusion, Demerath et al. (2022) write that the strategies they described can be learned, “The key overarching challenge for teachers and teacher candidates is to ask themselves, both individually and in collaborative professional learning efforts, what they can do to build trust with their students, and to explore how they might respond to the student queries included in this paper – or others like them. It is likely that more focused skill building for trusting relationships in districts, schools, and teacher preparation programs, could have substantial impacts on student belonging, engagement and achievement.” I really enjoyed reading this paper!

In “Trust between teacher and student in academic education at school“, Platz (2021) focuses on the importance of trust in academic education (in contrast to moral or civic education, where it is also acknowledged as important, but not in the focus of their discussion). They describe “[a] student who trusts their teacher is optimistic that the teacher will act in a certain way even though the student does not know whether the teacher will do so. If the student knew that this would occur, no trust would be necessary. […] In many cases, students do not know whether what the teacher teaches is worth knowing. They simply trust that the teacher will select relevant content and appropriate learning methods for their lessons. Also, when it comes to testing their intellectual competences what they have learnt in class, students trust that the teacher will provide them with helpful and encouraging feedback, that the teacher will not make fun of their errors and that the teacher will recognise the effort and progress that the students have made.”

“Whether the student trusts the teacher, and vice versa, essentially hinges on the relationship that connects them. As a consequence, reasons for trust that are independent of the relationship—for instance reasons that refer to the teacher’s competence or commitment—can never fully explain trust. While the student’s trust in the teacher might also relate to relationship-independent qualities of the teacher, such as their competence, it is the relationship between teacher and student that ultimately grounds trust“. Teachers can be competent without students trusting them if there is no good relationship: “Trust relationships persist over time and are characterised by an ongoing personal exchange between teacher and student. As a consequence, trust cannot be reduced to isolated synchronous instances of interaction. Moreover, when the student trusts the teacher, they trust the teacher as a person; they do not simply rely on certain aspects of the teacher’s personality or character“. With this, Platz (2021) explains the difference between trust and reliance — reliance can be independent of the relationship and just based on competence or similar. When we rely on someone, we assume they will do X. When we trust someone, we assume they will do X for us.

We can learn knowledge based on just relying on someone (both teachers as well as textbook authors, experts on TV, …) without having any kind of relationship with them. But when we know someone we can take up what they are saying based on relying on their competence, commitment, goodwill, or we can trust them based on the relationship we have with them, through which we trust their honesty, etc.. But education is not only about knowledge. “Students learn to evaluate their epistemic competencies based on the responses they receive from the teacher. If there is no trust between teacher and student, this feedback loop is disturbed in important ways” (my emphasis). You only take feedback on matters that are so personal and tied to your identity from someone whom you would also ask for advice, i.e. whom you trust. “Only if the relationship between teacher and student is trustful will the student make themselves vulnerable to the teacher by showing the teacher their intellectual weaknesses and asking for assistance and support. Trust is therefore a key component of a good teacher–student relationship and of a good learning environment. It provides a relational basis for cooperation and collaboration and an important resource for both teacher and student in the process of teaching and learning.” (my emphasis)

In “Building trust in the classroom: perspectives from students and teachers“, Holzer & Daumiller (2025) “propose an extended definition of trust as a willingness to be vulnerable to, or to confide in, others based on their openness, honesty, reliability, benevolence, and competence”. They motivate why trust is important to develop in school (and, in contrast to Platz (2021), trust is clearly not just in the relationship between people): “trust is also an outcome of the educational process that is critical to a functioning society, as schools aim to transmit societal norms and develop the cognitive capacities necessary for trust to be recognized as an individual and collective resource” (my emphasis), as the society needs to trust schools to entrust their kids to them: “Therefore, schools play a critical role in society, fostering trust not only to further students’ learning outcomes but also to build functional communities.”

Holzer & Daumiller (2025) interview students in a German Mittelschule and find that they describe trust as the “willingness to confide in someone“, being willing to be open, vulnerable, honest, reliable. Also respect was important to both students and teachers. Behaviours associated with trust are for example individual and private conversations, help with issues, meeting each other outside of the classroom, e.g. on hiking trips (“Interestingly, the findings suggest that behaviours and situations occurring outside of class hold greater importance in building trust compared to those within the classroom. The identified aspects hold high practical relevance: teachers can leverage them to enhance trust in their relationships with students, while also setting and maintaining appropriate boundaries.“), and knowing something personal about each other. Consequences associated with trust are to seek help (students from teachers) and general well-being (for students AND teachers) in class.

They make the important point that we don’t only need the trust moves, but that they also need to be interpreted as such: “Notably, it is not only crucial that there exist behaviours and situations that support trust, but also how they are perceived by students and teachers.” and that their “findings support the results by Farini (2012), who indicated that creating conditions for trust relationships means promoting possibility for social action and interaction, including an avoidance of alienation and of loss of confidence in the educational relationship” (which I would follow up on if I still had the energy).

Ok, now I seriously need to go home!

Demerath, P., Kemper, S., Yousuf, E., & Banwo, B. (2022). A grounded model of how educators earn students’ trust in a high performing US urban high school. The Urban Review, 54(5), 703-732.

Gunderman, R. B., & Wood, B. P. (2004). Trusting the student: Learner-centered education. Journal of the American College of Radiology, 1(12), 897-900.

Holzer, A., & Daumiller, M. (2025). Building trust in the classroom: perspectives from students and teachers: A. Holzer and M. Daumiller. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 40(2), 62.

Platz, M. (2021). Trust between teacher and student in academic education at school. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55(4-5), 688-697.

Good thing I still have so many unpublished dips, given the amount of posts I am publishing today!

It doesn’t look as hot or sunny as it actually was!