Mentors who can be described as advisers were common in teacher education in the USA in 1980s (Ganser as cited in Lindgren, 2005). They mostly worked with supporting beginning teachers to support during their transition from university to the profession. Mentorship has been reported to be beneficial to the novice teacher in finding identity and roles in the profession by relating practice to theory. It has also been said to contribute to the teachers staying in the profession longer.

In the literature, theory and practice relationships in teacher education are contextualized within either practicum or mentorship. The latter, which is the main theme of this study, is reported to have limited literature in Sweden (Lategan, 2002). It is also suggested that mentorship programs have been developed in a different way in different Swedish universities. For example, at the University of Boras, mentorship means an activity related to learning to teach that involves a mentor and a group of mentees (Kihlstorm et. al., 2007). This is a strong point of group mentoring where novices approach the issues in a more varied way with various interpretations of the situations.  Mentors meet with student-teachers in the semesters when these students do not extensive teaching in practice schools (Eriksson, 2009). They also work closely with the school teacher but they do not assess their performance.  As one of the teacher educator commented, ‘students feel more  at ease raising even the most ridiculous issues about teaching during meetings’ (Kizildag, in preparation). 

The Swedish teacher educations reform from 2001suggested more responsibility from local schools regarding the professional learning of student teachers (Proposition, 1999/2000:135).  Therefore, one of the purposes of the current paper is to present how student-teachers communicate theory and practice relations through the mentorship model in Swedish teacher training system compared to the other equivalents in other countries. What framework for learning opportunities about teaching as a profession built during these meetings  is one question that will be analysed.  The group dynamics, the role of the mentees and the mentor and the relationship between the parts are going to be described with reference to whether they change over time.  

Beach, D. (1990). Making Sense of the Problems of Change: An Ethnographic Study of a Teacher Education Reform. (Göteborg Studies in Educational Sciences 100). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Beach, D. (2005). From fieldwork to theory and representation in ethnography. In G. Troman, B. Jeffrey & G. Walford (Ed.s.) Methodological issues and Practices in Ethnography: Studies in Educational Ethnography Vol 11 (pp.1-17). Oxford, UK: JAI Press. Eriksson, A. (2009). Om teori och praktik i lärarutbilding: En etnografisk och discursanalytik studie (About Theory and Practice in Teacher Education: An Ethnographic and Discourse Analytical Study. (Göteborg Studies in Educational Sciences 275). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Franke, A. & Dahlgren, L. O. (1996). Conceptions of Mentoring: An Empirical Study of Conceptions of Mentoring during the School-Based Teacher Education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(6). 627-641. Kihlstrom, S., Andersson, E., Davidsson, B., Lasson, I. & Arvidsson, I. (2007). Using Diaries, Reflection and Mentorship in Teacher Training. Borås, Sweden: Högskolan I Borås, Institutionen för Pedagogik, skrift nr. 3, 2007. Kizildag, A.( in preparation) English Language Teacher Trainees’ Professional Learning during Practicum in Högskolan i Borås. (Pilot Study for Post-doc Thesis, sponsored by Swedish Institution). Latagen, S. (2002). Mentoring in Swedish Teacher Education. Borås, Sweden: Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen för Pedagogik, skrift nr. 9, 2002. Lindgren, U. (2000). En empirisk studie av mentorskap inom högre utbildning i Sverige. [An empirical study of mentorship in higher education in Sweden, Doctoral thesis.] Umeå university: Department of Swedish and Social Sciences. Lindgren, U. (2005). Experiences of beginning teachers in a school-based mentoring program in Sweden. Educational Studies, 31(3). 251-263 Lindgren, U. (2006).Professional Support to Novice Teachers by Mentoring. Paper presented at the 31st ATEE Conference, Portorož, Slovenia. Morberg, Å. (2001). Anledning till handledning. Didaktisk tidskrift,11(3-4), 2001, Göteborg: Göteborgs Universitet. Proposition. 1999/2000: 135. En förnyad lärarutbilding. Retrieved from http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c4/26/45/df80f045.pdf