Although trust is attributed great importance in both pedagogical theory and practice, the concept and function of trust in pedagogical-professional contexts has so far hardly been determined systematically from the educational-scientific perspective. Starting from pedagogical and profession-sociological attempts at definition, the contribution gauges the significance of trust for professional pedagogical work. The aim is to develop an educational-scientific research perspective on the basis of a critical reconstruction of theoretical and empirical approaches to trust and (pedagogical) profession and to conceptualize a procedural understanding of trust.