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The Quality of School Life: Teacher-Student Trust Relationships and the Organizational School Context

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Abstract

In exploring the quality of schools’ social system, this study provides insight into in which types of schools students may encounter barriers in developing supportive teacher-student relationships because of teachers exposing low levels of trust in students. Student culture and teachability perceptions are assessed as incentives for teachers’ perceptions of students’ trustworthiness. Information was gathered from 2,104 teachers across a representative sample of 84 secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium). A measure for trust in students was derived from the trust scales developed by Hoy and Tschannen-Moran. Multilevel analyses reveal that teacher perceptions of students’ teachability strongly predict teacher trust. This underscores the importance of teacher perceptions of students’ ability to meet the expectations imposed on them with regard to the formation of trust. Additionally, we show that teacher trust is affected by the organizational school context, although the academic orientation of the student culture plays no role.

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Notes

  1. In 2007, the Forum for Ethnic-Cultural Minorities roughly estimated the percentage of elementary and secondary school teachers with an immigrant background in Flanders at 1% of the whole teaching staff (http://www.minderhedenforum.be/2onderwijs/200710allochtoneleerkrachten.htm).

  2. In the Flemish educational system, no real distinction is made between public and private schools regarding state support. Historically, the private sector encountered greater development in terms of both the number of schools and the number of enrolled students. In our sample, public schools are somewhat overrepresented due to the data collection procedure favoring larger cities, in which most of the municipal schools are located.

  3. Transforming the variable to reduce its skewness and adjusted analyses (not reported) yielded similar results.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Dimitri Van Maele & Mieke Van Houtte

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  1. Dimitri Van Maele
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Van Maele, D., Van Houtte, M. The Quality of School Life: Teacher-Student Trust Relationships and the Organizational School Context. Soc Indic Res 100, 85–100 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9605-8

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