Strengthening trust in schools and communities

It is hard to keep up with all the changes to the global education ecosystem, from mass funding cuts resulting in shifting policy priorities to the explosion of AI and more. In this rapidly shifting context, building and fostering relational trust between education institutions, students, families, and educators is even more critical.

On February 27, Kuri Chisim from BRAC Institute of Educational Development, Khadija Shariff from Milele Zanzibar Foundation, Ellen Chigwanda from CARE Zimbabwe, and James Bridgeforth from Community Schools Learning Exchange (CSLX) led a conversation asking “Where do we start building or rebuilding trust in our communities?” as a part of the Knowing-Doing Network’s Collaboration Conversations series. They spoke about their experiences building trust with communities, young people, families, district leaders, and national governments in four different contexts.

Why does trust matter in education?

Trust is critical to ensuring that education systems meet the needs of learners and their families, schools, and communities. From schools in the U.S. to Chile, relational trust has been shown as the foundation to and an outcome of strong family, school, and community partnerships and creating a school culture that is welcoming and inclusive for all students and their families. Trust benefits students’ test scores as well as their sense of belonging and well-being. Educators are more invested and are more likely to stay in the teaching profession when they feel trusted by the school community. When families feel heard and see themselves reflected in the school culture and decisions, they tend to have greater trust with their schools. Developing a shared vision on education, such as a school plan or framework, requires trust between families and schools especially during crises and conflicts. Trust is essential at all levels of the education system.

What is relational trust?

The Center for Universal Education in collaboration with the Family Engagement in Education Network has been advancing foundational research on relational trust and has developed a relational trust scale that schools can use to gauge trust between families, students, and educators. Initial findings are published in Six Global Lessons on How Family, School, and Community Engagement Can Transform Education. The seven elements are competence, respect, integrity, shared vision, care, culture of listening, and interactions.

Figure 1. Elements of relational trust

Relational trust is critical within and between different layers of education ecosystems and among different education system actors, including students, educators, and parents/caregivers in learning spaces; families and civil society groups in communities; and governments and education system leaders within systems and societies.

Figure 2. Layers of relational trust within the education ecosystem

How do we strengthen relational trust?

Seeing young people, their families, and their communities as assets

Treating students, families, and communities as assets means showing care and respect, and recognizing and honoring their competence. Care is the personal regard for others while respect is treating others with dignity. Competence is acknowledging and naming capabilities, skills, and potential among students, families, and educators and encourages greater participation and partnership.

At CARE Zimbabwe, care and respect are critical elements to building trust with adolescent girls. Ellen Chigwanda investigates the challenges posed by climate shocks on rural adolescent girls’ education and shows how they can be positioned as “game changers” in locally led climate action. In her research and practice, Ellen has found that girls “want to feel that whatever contributions they are bringing to the table are valued, are taken as data, and that they are contributing to our broader understanding of what the barriers are, and therefore what the solutions would be to build more resilient education systems.” When girls know they are being seen and valued, they can contribute to innovative solutions.

In their work promoting family-school ties and strengthening community school systems, CSLX is using an assets-based approach to student and family knowledge. According to James Bridgeforth, “Instead of thinking about just the needs of the students and needs of the families, we are really looking at the assets and the strengths that they have and how they think we can all work together to build the schools that we actually want to have in our communities.” Thinking of families and students as assets and capable partners in school planning and implementation helps shift power dynamics and creates school cultures that reflect the aspirations of families and children.

Centering voices and experiences through culture of listening and interactions

Fostering interactions and a culture of listening inside a school, in communities, or among education system leaders cultivates collaboration and a sense of belonging to a community. Interactions include all the ways that families, students, educators and other education system actors communicate and come into contact with each other.

A culture of listening centers voices of all education system actors equitably and paves the way to collaborative and culturally responsive approaches. There is active listening and valuing input and perspectives of all education system actors, especially students and families. Kuri Chisim shared how a culture of listening is embedded in BRAC’s work with mothers and young children in the Rohingya community to support their mental well-being amid extensive exposure to trauma. As she describes, BRAC “integrates all these elements into their parental engagement program … so that people can see the reflection of their culture. And this creates something that is concrete and sustainable for the community.” Building trust with communities who have significant displacement and trauma takes time, care, and intention. Listening to hundreds of families and children to understand their existing practices to cope with and heal from trauma is a first step.

Interactions within formal settings such as classrooms and schools are influenced by cultural and socioeconomic factors and power dynamics. Khadija Shariff noted how at the Milele Zanzibar Foundation, bringing people together for a cup of tea or a meal is important to building empathy and “seeing the humanity in each other,” which includes seeing government education leaders as humans alongside students, families, and teachers.

Shared vision to collective action

Developing a shared vision for a school or education system ensures families and students are invested in a school’s success and feel collective ownership over the vision of school change. A shared vision brings together beliefs on education among families, educators, students, and the community, as well as goals and strategies for school change. The process of developing this shared vision should include opportunities to listen to different perspectives and reflect on the purpose of education together and share power. At BRAC, this means “designing, implementing program with the community who will be the driver of the intervention,” Kuri notes.

A shared vision helps promote not only collective ownership, but collective leadership. James noted how building a shared vision with families and communities is rooted in CSLX’s approach to managing data and decision making: “It’s not just about us collecting data as school district leaders or as researchers but really working with the families and the students to make sure that it is their data, it is their school, it is their vision.”

In addition to building a shared vision between learning spaces, homes, and communities, it is important to build collaboration with governments and other leaders. The Milele Zanzibar Foundation is working to reduce the gap between communities and education leaders by using participatory approaches to center all voices in decision making. According to Khadija, “A critical way to build trust is to think about our approach of how we work with the ministry. We are not just coming in with our own [civil society] agendas, but building on momentum and interest that’s already there … and aligning with what they [government] are already trying to do.”

To achieve a shared vision, education system actors must act with integrity and follow promises through with action. As Ellen noted, integrity is critical to both practice and research. “What integrity does is it connects research with action. When we do research, to what extent is it going to make the life of a girl easier? Is it going to make quality better for the girl within the school? If she was spending, for instance, six days at home because there’s no water at the school, and she has no way of managing her menstrual hygiene management needs—to what extent can our research reduce those number of days that she’s having to spend away from the classroom?” When there are accountability mechanisms to ensure that the shared vision is realized, trust is strengthened.

CUE and collaborating organizations are only at the beginning of a journey to study the components of relational trust and the enablers and outcomes of trust in schools. Get in touch with us to learn more.