Trust‐effectiveness patterns in schools

Purpose To investigate the consequences of relational trust, especially parent measured trust, for desirable school outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Using a US Midwestern state sample of 79 schools, parent and teacher trust data are used to derive a trust‐effectiveness typology. Trust was conceptualized as one party's willingness to be vulnerable to another party based on the confidence that the latter party is benevolent, reliable, competent, honest, and open. Findings Findings derived from the extraction of canonical correlation variates support the prediction that a complex and extensive trust environment is predictive of internal school conditions and consequences, even after accounting for socioeconomic status of the school community. Four theoretical trust‐effectiveness patterns emerge from the interpretation. Research limitations/implications The research design was planned as a school level study. Perceptual data collected at the individual level were intended for aggregation thus, nested analyses were not possible. Other evidence is offered for justification of aggregations. Practical implications Researchers and school leaders need to consider a broad trust environment as having relevance for predicting and enacting school success, not just those trust levels that can be measured as teacher perceptions. Originality/value Previous school trust research, when it has considered parent trust, measured it as a teacher perception. This study measures parent trust directly and hence more credibly. The empirically derived trust‐effectiveness school types introduce the possibility that “high teacher trust” can sometimes be part of a menacing school pattern.