Trust within Learning

Book excerpt: Trust within Learning provides invaluable insight into the learning relationship between students and teachers, a complex and dynamic area of research. It achieves this aim by reimagining the role of trust in the various sectors of education and exploring its import. Devin Thornburg provides invaluable insight into the learning relationship between students and teachers, a complex and dynamically-changing area of research. It does this by re-imagining the way trust encompasses different sectors of education and its importance to what and how students learn. Through interviews with students and teachers in eight countries on four continents, the author investigates the role of trust across cultures, seeking to understand the value and meaning it has in each setting. The author uses a methodology of Affirmative Inquiry through the encounters with students and teachers about trust in learning, making the effort to establish a research framework of intercultural competence. His findings are organized to explore relationships, roles, expertise and the community and cultures of trust, resulting in conclusions about the influence of history and context of schooling in each country and possible implications for practitioners and scholars. In doing so, the book raises critical questions about the teaching of culturally diverse students in the U.S. and elsewhere. It therefore informs and acts as a critical companion to those engaged in the study of learning, teaching and school reform.