Using a Complexity-Based Perspective to Understand Relationships among Mentoring, School Conflicts, and Novice Retention

• In Event: Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Complex Relationships, Complex Conversations

Abstract

Complexity-thinking, ecologically-based sustainable capacity-building, narrative inquiry, and pragmatism informed my study of the relationships among mentoring, conflict, and novice retention. I constructed stories from interviews with six mentor-novice dyads in an urban high school. I analyzed these stories in light of their relevance to eight indicators of complex systems as defined by Davis and Sumara (2006). I also found examples of teacher conflicts with administrators, students, and other categories and noted how the dyad’s complex nature and its use of capacity building helped mentors and novices handled those conflicts. My findings suggest that mentor-novice relationships differ from other relationships; however, the connection netween novice retention and the ways mentor-novice relationships handled school conflicts and barriers to conflict resolution was inconclusive.

Author

• Sheryn Waterman, University of North Carolina - Greensboro