Objectives

This qualitative research project focuses on contradictory organizational demands mentors in the dual German teacher induction training, situated in schools and in teacher training colleges, have to meet.

Key research question

What are orientational patterns of teachers-mentors in mentoring newcoming trainee teachers?

Theoretical framework

In Germany, novice teachers, having passed their first state exam, have to undergo a dual teacher induction training based in two different kinds of organizsations. Next to teaching at school, they are being educated, counseled and assessed at a teacher training college (KMK, 2012). At their training schools, trainee teachers are being accompanied by mentoring teachers, whose main purpose is to endorse the trainee teachers’ preparations and reflections of lessons. However, hese mentors find themselves faced with contradictory requirements caused by their status as educators between the organizational demands of school education on the one hand and adult education on the other hand (Terhart, 2018; Tippelt, 2018). As mentoring in teaching preparation happens in the interplay between school and training college, the meso level of organizing is addressed, where the professional practices do happen in this organizational field. 

Mentors' counseling and teaching practices are framed by the instituted order of schools and teacher training colleges, their organizational structures and tasks, roles, and functions of the organization’s members (Schwarz & Weber, 2010). While struggling with contradictory roles and responsibilities in their double roles, mentors also have to face organizational conflicts between the two organizations, concerning the prerogative of interpretation of teaching practices (Elven & Schwarz, 2018). However, mentoring teachers fulfill all necessary conditions of so-called “reflective practitioners” (Schön, 1983). This leads to the presupposition that intense self-reflection and the reflection of their mentees’ lessons has a reciprocal impact on mentors' professional developments as well as on the schools' organizational development (Schlüter & Berkels, 2014). 

Methods and mode of inquiry Methodologically, the qualitative study presented makes use of Documentary Method (Bohnsack, 2013) based on knowledge sociology, distinguishing between communicative and conjunctive (atheoretical) knowledge. The latter is understood as implicit knowledge gained from experience which supports daily routines and everyday practice comparable with the sociological concept of habitus (Bourdieu 1987). It differs from explicit knowledge available in a communicative way in terms of common sense within the scope of reconstructive social research. In this context, reconstruction aims at the habitualized and incorporated orientation knowledge underlying practice structuring actions quite independently from the subjectively expressed sense of statements.

Results and substantiated conclusions Two main aspects of scientific and scholarly significance of the findings could be identified and should be put forward as a point for discussion. On an individual level, the concept of mentors as “reflective practitioners” (Schön, 1983) in German teacher induction training should be reconsidered, since the mentors’ foci of interest are on preliminary discussions about lesson planning and on classroom management rather than on the reflection of their own or their mentees’ lessons. This could involve a reconsideration of the structures of German inductive teacher training, e.g. providing more opportunities for reflection in the mentoring tandem at school, or even a greater focus on preliminary discussions of lesson planning within the mentoring tandem. On an organizational level, the lack of an impact of mentoring on the organizational development should be reconsidered, since the mentors' counseling and mentees' learning seems to be strongly marked by socialization an habitualization in the organizational field. This leads to the supposition that mentoring in German teacher training supports a solidification of organizational structures at schools rather than innovation. These hypotheses should be put forward in a presentation and discussed with a wider audience.

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