What the Research Says

In their comprehensive review of 51 recent, high-quality studies* on family involvement, A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement, Henderson and Mapp (2002) highlight the following key findings on partnerships between families and schools:

1. Students with involved parents, regardless of family income and background, are more likely to:

Earn higher grades and test scores, and enroll in higher-level programs
Be promoted, pass their classes, and earn credits
Attend school regularly
Have better social skills, show improved behavior, and adapt well to school
Graduate and go on to postsecondary education (p. 7).

2. Family and community involvement that is linked to student learning has a greater effect on achievement than more general forms of involvement. To be effective, the form of involvement should be focused on improving achievement and be designed to engage families and students in developing specific knowledge and skills (p. 38).

3. Schools that succeed in engaging families from very diverse backgrounds share three key practices. They:

Focus on building trusting, collaborative relationships among teachers, families, and community members
Recognize, respect, and address families' needs, as well as class and cultural differences
Embrace a philosophy of partnership where power and responsibility are shared (p. 7).

As the above findings suggest, trust and relationship-building are recurrent themes in discussions of family involvement. Until recently, however, trust in particular has received far less attention in the research than have other aspects of family involvement. Few studies have focused specifically on the role of trust in relationships between schools and families; fewer still have considered ways in which issues of race, class, culture, home language, family involvement, and trust intersect. Difficult to define, trust is even more difficult to measure, let alone link causally to family involvement or other outcomes for students, families, and schools. Three current, large-scale studies that have taken the issue on are described below:

Goddard, Tschannen-Moran, and Hoy's (2001) study of 47 elementary schools in a large urban school district in the Midwest resulted in two major findings related to relationships between families and schools: one, that student achievement is higher in schools where teachers report greater trust; and two, that "poverty more than ethnicity seems to be the culprit" in hindering trust in urban schools (p. 15). In examining levels of trust among teachers, parents, and students, the researchers concluded that "trust is systematically associated with student socioeconomic status—the larger the proportion of poor students in the school, the lower teachers' perceptions of trust" (p. 13). Further, they found that

even after controlling for the effects of the proportion of low-income students in a school as a whole, trust still plays an important role in student achievement. In fact, the amount of trust teachers have in students and in parents outweighs the effects of poverty…. Trust seems to foster a context that supports student achievement, even in the face of poverty (p. 14).

In their 10-year study of more than 400 Chicago elementary schools, Bryk and Schneider (2002) concluded that trust among teachers, principals, students, and parents is a strong predictor of student and school success. Schools with higher levels of trust are more likely to successfully implement and sustain reforms, while those with low levels of trust stand little chance of making significant gains. According to the researchers, schools demonstrating high levels of teacher-family and teacher-principal trust generally possess the following characteristics: they have a stable population; there are minimal "racial and ethnic tensions" among students, parents, and staff; and educators are able to provide parents with clear evidence "that students are learning" (p. 97).
Adams and Christenson's (2000) survey of 1,234 parents and 209 teachers in a large suburban school district found that both teachers and parents believed that improving home-school communication was a "primary way to enhance trust in the family-school relationship" (p. 491). They also found that the kinds of interactions parents and teachers had were better predictors of trust than was the frequency of interactions. Additionally, family-school trust "correlated significantly with three indicators of school performance for high school students: credits earned, grade point average, and attendance (p. 491).

Although there are few studies on trust to date, these and other sources (listed in the References) provide us with an understanding of why trust is so important in building relationships and suggest ways in which schools can build trust.

*Studies selected for inclusion in A New Wave of Evidence (2002) were reviewed to meet the following standards: "1. Sound methodology: experimental, quasi-experimental, or correlational design with statistical controls. For qualitative studies, such as case studies [the authors] looked for sound theory, objective observation, and thorough design. 2. Study findings that matched the data collected and conclusions that were consistent with the findings" (Henderson & Mapp, 2002, p. 13). For more information about these studies, a database of more than 200 articles, and more research on family involvement see the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory Web site at www.sedl.org/work/family.html