General description and research questions

The figure of the mentor is a topic of great interest within the field of education and as such there is a vast body of literature which primarily analyses mentoring from the perspective of the training and learning of students and novice teachers (see Drennan & Clarke, 2009; Fernandez-Cano, Torralbo, Vallejo & Fernández-Guerrero, 2012; de Kleijn, Mainhard, Meijer, Pilot & Bekelmans, 2012). The origin of the term ‘mentor’ derives from one of the many myths of Greek mythology. Specifically, it refers to the passage of the Odyssey where the goddess Athena impersonates Mentor, the friend of Ulysses who was entrusted to protect and educate his son, Telemachus.

Another sphere where mentoring commonly occurs is that of the supervision/completion of doctoral theses, where the terms ‘supervisor’, ‘manager’ and ‘mentor’ are used interchangeably depending on the academic culture of the country in question. Three major focuses can be found in the research on the topic of mentoring - theses. First, studies that examine the characteristics of thesis supervisors and their relationship with doctoral candidates (see Armstrong, 2004; Kandikó & Kinchin, 2012). A second focus of a large number of publications concerns what might be called good practices in the supervision of doctoral theses, that is, the description of a range of desirable actions for completing doctoral theses and ensuring future doctoral publication output (Kumar & Stracke, 2007; Jackson, 2013). In this regard, the vast majority of universities in Spain have developed their own manuals, also called good practice codes or guides, which provide recommendations for improving the mentoring process. A third line of study, albeit with a smaller body of literature, examines the benefits of co-authorship in the supervision of doctoral theses, focusing primarily on two variables: fields of study and/or specialisation and gender (see Fresno, 2002; Villarroya, Barrios, Borrego & Frias, 2008; Kiguwa & Malose, 2009).

The present study centres on this last line of study in an attempt to answer questions such as: What kind of mentoring exists in the field of mathematics education considering the gender of the thesis supervisor and the doctoral candidate? Does bias exist towards women? Have mentoring patterns changed throughout the period of analysis (1976-2012)? What will be the future trend of mentoring in terms of gender?

Objectives

The aim of this work is to investigate mentoring patterns between thesis supervisors and doctoral candidates in terms of their gender, with specific regard to doctoral theses undertaken in the field of mathematics education and their diachronic evolution over the last 36 years in Spain.

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