Although the process of learning educational theories form the bulk of teacher education programs, student teachers need to employ the existing conceptual knowledge during the practicum in real classrooms in order to construct their own teaching practical knowledge and form a teacher identity (Beck & Kosnik, 2002; Borko & Mayfield, 1995). Although the pedagogical practicum plays a significant role in the teacher preparation (Allen & Wright, 2014), its main efficiency hinges on a knowledgeable mentor (Hobson et al., 2009; Parker-Katz & Bay, 2008). Novice teachers' perceptions of teaching and the process of teacher identity forming are heavily influenced by the mentors, thus, the latter can be held accountable for the pre-service teachers' further evolvement as professionals (Graves, 2010). Thus, it is crucial for mentors to know how to mentor properly and how to build sustainable fruitful relationship with the mentee, in order the latter could advance their pedagogical development (Hudson, 2013). The purpose of the study is therefore to develop the existing theoretical knowledge about mentoring practices via exploring them within the universities with formal initial teacher education program and mainstream secondary schools. The obtained knowledge is expected to contribute to the overall existing theoretical knowledge of mentoring from the Kazakhstani perspective.

Research question:

• How is pre-service teacher mentoring framework between universities and secondary schools in Kazakhstan understood and practiced?

Sub-questions:

• What is mentoring and how are mentoring process and relationship conceptualized globally in formal initial teacher education? 
• How is mentoring conceptualized (perceived) by mentors in Kazakhstani mainstream secondary schools and by student teachers and practicum advisors at the universities? Which mentoring practices are prevalent between mainstream secondary schools and the universities?
• How these practices could be used for developing a mentoring framework within formal initial teacher education in Kazakhstani universities?

The sampling will entail three groups: mentors at schools (subject teachers), mentees (student teachers), and their practicum advisors at the universities (heads of the departments). Given that I will choose my participants according to the particular criteria, such as: having an experience of a mentoring culture (i.e., mentors at schools, who have mentored before for at least five years, student teachers, who have had a mentor during their pedagogical practicum in the mainstream school while studying at the university, and practicum advisors who have the experience in organizing and negotiating the practicum for at least one year), my sampling can be defined as purposeful. I want to involve 18 participants in total: six mentees (student teachers), six school mentors, and six university practicum advisors. This particular number of participants is expected to contribute to my study without saturating the data. As I will engage two university cases and two secondary school cases, I will interview three student teachers and three practicum advisors in each university case, and three school mentors in each school case accordingly. 

The study will be guided by the elements of the following conceptual frameworks:

• Mertz's (2004) conceptual model of mentoring discerns between various roles and functions of the mentor, depending on two variables: intent and involvement. The framework is represented as a pyramid to suggest the hierarchy between the intent and involvement levels, starting from the base (modeling level) to the top (brokering level). 
• Furlong and Maynard (1995) framework on four main stages of student teacher development (beginning teaching, supervised teaching, from teaching to learning, and autonomous teaching) and the role and functions of the mentor at each stage (role-model, coach, critical friend, co-inquirer).
• Reflective practitioner framework developed by Schon (1987) indicates three main stages of knoweledge emergence: «Knowing-in-action», «reflection-in-action» and «reflection-on-action»

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