Trust as prerequisite for school development. A study of school development based on collective learning in teacher teams.

Abstract

The article contributes to in-depth understanding of local conditions for school development, by means of collective learning in teacher teams. A longitudinal case study of school development processes in five teacher teams in different schools, who participated in an identical, externally designed, school development project, was conducted. The two-year project included a collective learning process with training, supervision and teacher-student interventions. The teachers were expected to develop collaboration, joint action and collective reflection, through the implementation and monitoring of collaborative teacher-student interventions. Teacher-student talks were intended to be videotaped, to make teachers’ practices visible to joint reflection and improvement. Although the five teacher teams participated in the project on comparable terms and with equal resources added, teachers in retrospect rated the project out-comes with great variety, on the different schools. This variation set the starting point for this article.

The interest of the investigation is directed towards the teachers’ experiences from the school development processes. Analyses are based on qualitative process data collected before, during and after the project. In thematic analyses, three aspects of trust were identified as crucial for the teachers’ experiences; process trust, collegial trust and collective trust. General confidence in the process (process trust) and high-enough psychological safety and collective confidence within the group (collective trust), showed to be prerequisites for endurance of the school development processes. Collegial trust – trustworthy interpersonal relationships and mutual professional confidence between the teachers in the group - showed to be an additional prerequisite for teachers’ visibility in practice, and thereby for a deepening in the collective learning process. Collegial trust and collective trust are concepts known in the organizational literature, while process trust is a concept suggested by this article.