The focus of my research project is on teachers and their role as cooperating teachers, or mentors in teacher education for primary school. In Norway field experiences are an integrated part of the four year teacher education programme. Student teachers stay together with a teacher and her pupils for about 6-8 weeks a year. These teachers are alloted time and paid to mentor student teachers about two hours each day. Mentors have their primary occupation at "practice schools", schools which have an agreement with the university college to be a placement for student teachers. Thus there are several mentors at the same site, both newcomers and experienced mentors. I have followed six teachers at two different schools through their first year as mentors for student teachers. I want to gain more insight into how those who enter into this double role as both teachers and mentors for the first time, perceive their role. What are they experiences? How are they prepared to function as mentors? How is it to be employed at a “practice school”?  

There is a lack of research in Norway in this field. From international studies we know that the passage from being a teacher of children to becoming a mentor of student teachers does not occur naturally (Orland 1997, Edwards & Collison). Bullough (2005) points to how mentors inherit the role as boundary spanners, having one foot in the school and the other at the university college. Naturally, they seem to have their primary identification with teachers and children. Mentor identities are subsumed under teacher identities. This can be problematic because the White Paper 11 (KD 2009) states clearly that everyone involved in teacher education in Norway should take responsibility as teacher educators. Feiman - Nemser (2001) shed further light on the issue as she asserts that "mentor teachers may not have adequate preparation or time to work with student teachers, and they may not define their role and responsibilities in educational terms" (p.1031). Are cooperating teachers in Norway well enough prepared to be teacher educators like the white paper propose? Do they talk about their work in educational terms? Do they develop an identity as teacher educators?

To develop a further understanding of this issue I will build upon Wengers (1998) work on how identity develops through participation in learning communities. Participation and engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we learn and become who we are. We are constructing identities in relation to these communities.    

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