Nursery Teacher's Interaction with Parents and the Trust

Narrative Analysis of Daily Life Reports on Nurseries

Abstract

Trust is a significant factor in interactions between professionals and clients. However, existing theories on trust do not adequately elucidate the relationship between trust and the interactions based on it. In this paper, a narrative approach was applied to analyze the daily life reports pertaining to certain days when nursery teachers and parents alternated their shifts. Nursery teachers were classified according to the degree of trust placed in them by parents and a comparison was made between the high- and lowtrust classes using narrative analyses (construction and relationship analyses). As a result of the construction analysis, parents' narratives of the high-trust class were characterized by the "development type" in which similar plot patterns were repeated. In the relationship analysis, we found that teachers from among the high-trust class expressed their comments on topics related to the parents' narratives. In sum, the difference between the high and low-trust classes was observed not only in "what" or "how much" but also in "how" the narratives were framed. Lastly, we discussed the reasons why the means of narration caused a difference in the parents' degrees of trust and how the forms of narration can work toward developing parents' trust in nursery teachers.