Fördert Vertrauen Schulentwicklung im Kontext von Schulinspektionen?

Summary: In education, trust has always been an important concept as it is seen as a vital ele¬ment in a well-functioning school. A range of empirical studies indicate that trust affects the scope of possible development initiatives and conceptualise trust as a core resource for school development. The paper discusses the concept of trust as an important stimulus of school devel¬opment in the context of school inspections and presents a newly developed instrument to oper¬ationalise trust. An online questionnaire for principals in the Austrian province of Styria indicates that the dimensions of in-school trust and external trust by the inspectorate have to be distin¬guished. School leaders who experience trust by their inspector assess the intermediate pro¬cesses of school inspection which are to promote school improvement more positive. A high level of in-school trust is not directly connected to more development activities.