The Category of Trust in Studying One’s Choice of University

Abstract

The article discusses how educational organizations are chosen based on trust and how educational relationships stabilize after that choice is made. In order answer to these questions, we propose a conceptual model that contains two time perspectives — before admission and after admission to an educational organization. These temporal perspectives imply different languages for description: the first is described using the language of confidence, the second — using the language of consent. Moreover, the basis for distinguishing trust consists to a certain degree of a combination of knowledge and ignorance when it comes to the object of trust, while the basis for distinguishing consent is the presence or absence of disappointment in the education being received. The study’s main theoretical resources are G. Simmel’s intuitions about the nature of trust and L. Boltanski and L. Theveno on the nature of consent. The conceptual model includes the assumption that the types of trust formed at the very beginning, before entering the educational organization, determine how stable educational relationships subsequently prove to be. The article discusses the features and limitations of such a conceptual model, and displays an empirical mapping of distinction systems.