General description

How to best induct new teachers into their role as professional educators, has been shown to be a global challenge. Research concerning the difficulties new teacher faces when they transition to their roles as professional teachers, has yielded much important knowledge in the last two decades. This research has further shown the importance of establishing a mentoring-service to support the new teachers (Kemmis, Heikkinen, Fransson, & G. Aspfors, 2014).

Research questions

What actions does the Danish schools take to support the new teachers at the start of their career?

What supportive measures are best suited to keep a new teacher in her job?

How does the use of mentoring-services influence the number of new teachers who quit their job?

What skills should a mentor possess to best support a new teacher?

Objectives

The objective of this study is to investigate how the supportive measures put in place to induct new teachers into their teaching profession effect the number of teachers quitting the teaching profession in Denmark. Additionally we wish to formulate recommendations that ensures that induction can be viewed and structured as the first phase in a lifelong career.

Theoretical framework

The term induction does not refer to a single program nor a certain theory. Some argue that induction should be viewed as phase, a phase resembling adolescence. For the new teacher this phase is marked by the gathering and acquisition of practical knowledge, orientations, and attitudes (Aspfors, 2015). We regard induction from a political and practical perspective, and we base our study on empirical data.

Mentoring as a term does not refer to a single, well-defined concept. Kemmis note that the term is ill defined and poorly conceptualized, and therefore term is able to take on different meanings or properties depending on the perspective. The confusion regarding mentoring “[…] is not so much about a lack of theories but rather about a plurality of theories” (Kemmis et al., 2014 p. 154). The term mentoring is used differently for different purposes and in different settings (Sundli, 2007). The term mentor can as well refer to many different roles. For example can a mentor be an expert-coach, a subject specialist, a critical friend or a learner (Aslan & Öcal, 2012).

In this study, we will analyse mentoring and counselling within a constructivistic framework. Likewise in the study we will use a framework based on constructivistic and systemic theory to analyse collaborative learning, development though collegial counselling as well as supervision.

We wish to investigate the challenges faced by new teachers in their first job. We wish to do this from three different levels: a Society level, an organizational or school community level and an individual level.

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