Mentorship and Teachers’ Identity (Re)formulation: A Relational Account of One Mentorship Pairing

• In Event: Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: Research on Mentoring and Mentorship

Abstract

This autoethnographic study seeks to better understand how personal identity shapes the relationship between mentors and mentees, and how this personal relationship affects teaching experiences and practices for both parties. Informed by practitioner inquiry’s (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) foregrounding of teachers’ personal narratives and reflections on improving educational practice, the study takes a retrospective look at one mentor-mentee relationship. The study’s results show that the mentor and mentee’s ongoing dialogic inquiry and reflection led to an iterative (re)formulation of the participants’ teacherly identities and relationship with each other. This process of identity and relationship shifts in turn nurtured their re-conceptualizations of effective teaching and mentorship practices.

Authors

• Rhiannon M Maton, University of Pennsylvania

• Kathy (Aikaterine) Mantas, Nipissing University