The Mentor-Mentee Connection: The Underconceptualized (Policy) Relationship

• In Event: Shifting Policy Contexts for Induction: Implications for Research and Practice

Abstract

Although induction and mentoring programs are often portrayed as a commonsense solution to lower beginning teacher attrition rate, build pedagogical content knowledge and increase K-12 student achievement, there is a paucity of research which examines how mentoring policy components fit and work together at the local level. This multi-cased qualitative study scrutinizes how one policy component—mentoring standards, work in tandem with the policy aims, capabilities, environment and other policy instruments and their effects on the mentor-mentee relationship under a state voluntary induction and mentoring program. This study found that there did not appear to be a mentoring infrastructure; this got reflected in the informal nature of the mentor-mentee relationship.

Author

• Laurel Kathleen Dietz, The University of Alaska