Interpersonal trust in teacher-student relationships: Meaning for black students (14--16 years) of Caribbean background in secondary schools in the Greater Toronto Area (Ontario)

This dissertation focuses on the issue of trust in the relationship between black high school students of Caribbean background and their teachers. The central purpose of this dissertation is to examine trust in terms of its internal-external dynamics. It suggests that students pay attention not only to their external experiences but also their internal experiences. It also suggests that emotional experiences are among these internal experiences and that the characteristics of age, gender and length of time in Canada influence the trusting relationship between these students and their teachers. Twenty-four informants from throughout the Greater Toronto Area were used in the study. They consisted of eleven (11) nudes and thirteen (13) females between the age of fourteen to sixteen. All informants were of Caribbean background and were either born in Canada or in the Caribbean. Five (5) of these informants arrived in Canada within the last two and a half years. Analysis revealed that black students trust non- institutional persons (parents, family members and friends) more than they trust institutional persons (police, school administrators, teachers and counsellors). There is a link between the internal and external world. As students decide whether their teachers are trustworthy they look inward to their feelings, memories, expectations, beliefs and values and outwards at the verbal and non-verbal behaviours of their teachers, friends, family members and classmates. Specifically, they look at behaviours in teachers which they regard as respectful, and once they have encountered that respect, they make a confident decision (which they may or may not act on) to trust their teachers. Simultaneously, they experience feelings of security which give them the impetus to approach the teacher and the task in a positive manner. Grounded Theory is of enormous methodological significance in this study. It allows for the emergence of the meanings of informants. Rather than imposing meaning on the data, the method of constant comparison and testing of hypotheses brings out a holistic meaning of trust in the relationship between these students and their teachers. Findings from this study suggest that trust in the relationship between these students and their teachers is a mutually dared experience involving above all, respect. For these students, respect not only involves behaviours related to the academic but also the non-academic including behaviours that demonstrate respect for their racial heritage. These findings have numerous important implications for the micro-level relationship between teacher and students as well as for the structural factors that impact on this relationship. Greater respect, understanding and sensitivity in relating to students are important for teachers and other school personnel to demonstrate. It is also important that curriculum and educational policy issues demonstrate and facilitate such respect, understanding and sensitivity. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)