"Honoring the trust achieves three major goals: 1) to describe and document the problems facing today's colleges and universities, 2) to offer a vision of what the solutions to these problems will look like, and 3) to provide practical guidance for those who would be change agents or drivers of change."--Page 2 of cover.

Most Americans agree on the necessity of education reform, but there is little consensus about how this goal might be achieved. The rhetoric of standards and vouchers has occupied center stage, polarizing public opinion and affording little room for reflection on the intangible conditions that make for good schools. Trust in Schools engages this debate with a compelling examination of the importance of social relationships in the successful implementation of school reform. Over the course of three years, Bryk and Schneider, together with a diverse team of other researchers and school practitioners, studied reform in twelve Chicago elementary schools. Each school was undergoing extensive reorganization in response to the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, which called for greater involvement of parents and local community leaders in their neighborhood schools. Drawing on years longitudinal survey and achievement data, as well as in-depth interviews with principals, teachers, parents, and local community leaders, the authors develop a thorough account of how effective social relationships—which they term relational trust—can serve as a prime resource for school improvement. Using case studies of the network of relationships that make up the school community, Bryk and Schneider examine how the myriad social exchanges that make up daily life in a school community generate, or fail to generate, a successful educational environment. The personal dynamics among teachers, students, and their parents, for example, influence whether students regularly attend school and sustain their efforts in the difficult task of learning. In schools characterized by high relational trust, educators were more likely to experiment with new practices and work together with parents to advance improvements. As a result, these schools were also more likely to demonstrate marked gains in student learning. In contrast, schools with weak trust relations saw virtually no improvement in their reading or mathematics scores. Trust in Schools demonstrates convincingly that the quality of social relationships operating in and around schools is central to their functioning, and strongly predicts positive student outcomes. This book offer insights into how trust can be built and sustained in school communities, and identifies some features of public school systems that can impede such development. Bryk and Schneider show how a broad base of trust across a school community can provide a critical resource as education professional and parents embark on major school reforms. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology

The specific concern in What We Hold in Trust comes to this: the Catholic university that sees its principal purpose in terms of the active life, of career, and of changing the world, undermines the contemplative and more deep-rooted purpose of the university. If a university adopts the language of technical and social change as its main and exclusive purpose, it will weaken the deeper roots of the university’s liberal arts and Catholic mission. The language of the activist, of changing the world through social justice, equality and inclusion, or of the technician through market-oriented incentives, plays an important role in university life. We need to change the world for the better and universities play an important role, but both the activist and technician will be co-opted by our age of hyper-activity and technocratic organizations if there is not first a contemplative outlook on the world that receives reality rather than constructs it. To address this need for roots What We Hold in Trust unfolds in four chapters that will demonstrate how essential it is for the faculty, administrators, and trustees of Catholic universities to think philosophically and theologically (Chapter One), historically (Chapter Two) and institutionally (Chapters Three and Four). What we desperately need today are leaders in Catholic universities who understand the roots of the institutions they serve, who can wisely order the goods of the university, who know what is primary and what is secondary, and who can distinguish fads and slogans from authentic reform. We need leaders who are in touch with their history and have a love for tradition, and in particular for the Catholic tradition. Without this vision, our universities may grow in size, but shrink in purpose. They may be richer but not wiser.

This multidisciplinary book brings together scholars from Norway and the UK to discuss the notion of trust within the structures and forms of higher education located in two distinctive localities. The meaning of trust is multi-variant and nuanced, but is omnipresent in the literature on higher education ranging from student engagement to policy exhortations. A key feature of this book is the effort to integrate the term ‘trust’ conceptually, functionally and phenomenological more generally as well as within the context of higher education. Practice from within Norway and the UK is used to illustrate and expose relevant similarities and varieties in trust and the (possible) lack of it within the sector. The book thus faces the complexity of trust and its distinctive manifestation through a number of analytical lenses and realities.

The delivery of quality education to students relies heavily on the actions of an institution’s administrative staff. Effective leadership strategies allow for the continued progress of modern educational initiatives. It is crucial to investigate how effective administrators lead their organizations in challenging and difficult times and promote the accomplishments of their organization. Research Anthology on Preparing School Administrators to Lead Quality Education Programs is a vital reference source that offers theoretical and pedagogical research concerning the management of educational systems on both the national and international scale. It also explores academic administration as well as administrative effectiveness in achieving organizational goals. Highlighting a range of topics such as strategic planning, human resources, and school culture, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for educators, administrators, principals, superintendents, board members, researchers, academicians, policymakers, and students.

This multidisciplinary book brings together scholars from Norway and the UK to discuss the notion of trust within the structures and forms of higher education located in two distinctive localities. The meaning of trust is multi-variant and nuanced, but is omnipresent in the literature on higher education ranging from student engagement to policy exhortations. A key feature of this book is the effort to integrate the term ‘trust’ conceptually, functionally and phenomenological more generally as well as within the context of higher education. Practice from within Norway and the UK is used to illustrate and expose relevant similarities and varieties in trust and the (possible) lack of it within the sector. The book thus faces the complexity of trust and its distinctive manifestation through a number of analytical lenses and realities.

This book analyses higher education from cultural perspectives and reflects on the uses of intellectual devices developed in the cultural studies of higher education over the last decades. It presents fresh perspectives to integrate cultural studies in higher education with wider societal processes and studies the internal life of higher education. The book uses cultural perspectives developed in previous studies to understand a variety of processes and reforms taking place.