Productive Mentoring, teacher professional learning, teacher education, mentor teacher, cultural context, critically reflective teacher
Mentoring relationships of learning in teacher education have become
more widespread in the last decade and are no longer adequately described by
novice-expert conceptions (Mullen 2000, Wang and Odell 2007). This chapter considers a meta-analysis of ten
Masters studies of mentoring in teacher continuing education. The authors use their theoretical framework for Productive Mentoring as the comparative analytical lens for this
study (Bernstein 1990, 2000; Noddings 2000, 2003; Lingard et al 2003;
Darling-Hammond and Bransford 2005). Each MEd study is positioned with
regard to its stance on critical thinking, agency and research within a socio-political and cultural context. The paradoxes within which teachers work are well described by various contemporary writers (Hoban 2005, Giroux 2008, Ball 2009, Gewirtz
2009). It is clear that to balance a desire to promote creativity and critical
thinking within a system that measures outcomes in competency terms requires
enormous skill and perhaps some self-delusion. Findings suggest several
constraints operating with regard to the education and development of a
critically reflective mentor. The study raises key questions for the academic
programme and for policymakers and concludes with a research proposal
for an additional study of the mentoring construct in a rapidly changing society.