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“Don’t rock the boat”: conflicting mentor and pre-service teacher narratives of professional experience

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Abstract

This article examines conflicting mentor (school-based supervising teacher) and pre-service teacher narratives of professional experience in schools. It draws on a small narrative inquiry about the mentoring relationship in teacher education. Interview conversations were analysed using “writing as a method of inquiry”, allowing for a recursive understanding of the competing discourses that emerged, and highlighting the tensions in the mentoring relationship. While the pre-service teachers interviewed for this study expected professional experience to provide opportunities for innovation and collaboration, mentors tended to view the relationship as assimilation into the profession. Two points of challenge are identified where disruption to the tensions that arise from these competing narratives is needed if changes to educational equity are to occur.

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Notes

  1. In this paper, the terms “pre-service teacher”, “mentor” and “professional experience” are used in line with current practice in Australia. However, it is acknowledged that usage of these terms differs between institutions and is often contested.

  2. NAPLAN is the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy.

  3. The Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT) and E5 are Government guidelines about “good teaching practice”.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the generous time and insights given by the teachers and pre-service teachers who participated in this study. I also acknowledge support provided for this research by RMIT University, the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, and critical friends and reviewers who commented on earlier versions of this article.

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  1. RMIT University, PO Box 71, Bundoora, Melbourne, VIC, 3083, Australia

    Rachel Patrick

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  1. Rachel Patrick
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Correspondence to Rachel Patrick.

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Patrick, R. “Don’t rock the boat”: conflicting mentor and pre-service teacher narratives of professional experience. Aust. Educ. Res. 40, 207–226 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-013-0086-z

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