Positioning Processes in Teacher Education: How Student Teachers Position Themselves and Mentors While Learning

• In Event: Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: Mentoring Relationships Involving Preservice Student Teachers, Supervisors, and Teachers

Abstract

This qualitative study investigated student teachers' positioning of selves and of their mentors in two mentoring dyads. We found that whereas one student teacher positioned the mentor and herself mostly in close symmetric positions, the other student teacher positioned the mentor and herself in distant, asymmetric positions. These different positioning processes were found to be related to similarities and differences between the student teachers' and the mentors' pedagogical approaches, to the degree of compatibility between the mentor's approach to assisting novices and the student teachers' expectations of her mentoring, and to the kind of interpersonal relationships that developed in each dyad.

Authors

• Avivit Blanga, University of Haifa

• Lily Orland-Barak, University of Haifa