Mentoring for the Public Good

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Lives of K–12 Teachers: Mentors, Instructional Roles, Self-Efficacy, Adaptability, and Agency

Abstract

Purpose: To report a three-year mentoring program designed to help 46 early career teachers from 6 public schools, transition into the profession.
Perspective: Attachment theory (Bowlby) and Habitus (Bourdieu)
Method: Qualitative: interviews, focus groups and visual data with collaborative interpretation as co-participants’ co-researchers.
Data sources: Mentees narrative (year 1), a “working life” metaphor (Year 2), and a professional portrait (year 3).
Substantiated conclusions: Done well, mentoring as introspective facilitation leads to more transparent self-knowledge, and a keener awareness of sustainable change to practice.
Scholarly significance: Neo liberal, new public management discourses threaten educators’ autonomy to make informed, contextual, teaching and learning decisions. One crucial way to re-empower public education is from within, via professional learning opportunities that promote introspection. 

Authors

• Philip Riley, Australian Catholic University

• Andrea Marlene Gallant, Deakin University- Melbourne -Australia