This chapter offers an analysis of
eleven master’s theses from the postgraduate class of 2011, concerned with
mentoring in teacher education, in the Republic of Ireland at a time of
unprecedented change in the national requirements for mentoring and teaching.
The analysis draws on theory from Bernstein (2000, 33) who describes two
distinct pedagogical modes, an official recontextualising field (ORF) ‘created
and dominated by the state, its selected agents and ministries, and a pedagogic
recontextualising field (PRF)’ consisting of ‘pedagogues in schools and
colleges, and departments of education, specialised journals, private research
foundations’. The contemporary Irish context reflects Bernstein’s (2000)
analysis of the ways in which government policies can impact on classroom and
school-based practices.