Institutional Trust and Parental Safety Appraisal in a National Minority Context: Evidence from Arab Schools in Israel

Abstract

Parental perspectives are critical to school violence prevention because they shape help-seeking, reporting, and home–school collaboration, yet they are rarely examined in minority-school contexts. This study investigated how Arab parents in Israel appraise their children’s school safety and which factors best explain these appraisals. Guided by ecological and procedural-justice perspectives, we tested an institutional–relational model in which institutional trust and children’s integration indicators predict parental safety appraisal, alongside descriptive attention to socially consequential victimization (exclusion and sexual misconduct). Participants were 666 Arab parents of children in Grades 1–12 who completed an online survey assessing perceived victimization profiles, trust in school actors and the education system, children’s social acceptance and academic achievement, and perceived child safety across school settings. Repeated-measures analyses indicated significantly higher trust in proximal school personnel (homeroom teacher, counselor, principal) than in the education system. In multiple regression, institutional trust was the strongest predictor of parental safety appraisal, with additional contributions from academic achievement and social acceptance; demographic variables were not significant. The model explained 14% of the variance in safety appraisal (R² = .14; f² = .16). Findings suggest that, in minority contexts, parental safety perceptions are shaped less by demographics and more by institutional credibility and relational integration cues. Implications for school violence prevention include strengthening transparent, procedurally fair responses to incidents, building trust-based communication with families, and implementing culturally responsive practices that promote peer inclusion and academic stability.