In the Swiss single-phase pre-service teacher training, student teachers transition into fully qualified primary and secondary classroom teachers after three and five years of study, respectively. School-based practica take place parallel to their university-based studies. Mentor teachers guide students in their practica and play a crucial role in students’ professional development. However, mentor teachers must navigate multiple roles and balance their obligations to both their schools and the teacher education institutions, creating a complex professional dynamic.

Depending on the canton and university, new mentor teachers complete specific qualification programs which are supposed to prepare them for their new professional role. Hoffmann et al. (2015) found in their literature review however that mentor teachers are mostly unprepared for their new role. Leineweber (2022) reconstructed a variety of teacher education milieus showing that there is a great diversity of ways to approach mentoring in practica. The study from Valencia et al. (2009) shows multiple tensions between students and mentors and differing expectations when it comes to the practicum goals, highlighting the issue of varying compatibility when it comes to the collaboration between students and mentors. Other empirical studies show that orientations tend to remain stable in that beliefs (e.g. regarding academic achievement, authority or social relationships) that were developed in childhood tend to show up in the professional practice of a teacher or mentor teacher (author 2 and author 1), regardless of interventions like qualification programs.

 This is where our SNF-funded research project “Mentor teachers as teacher educators” (PraLeB) comes into play as a study designed to reconstruct mentor teachers’ implicit orientations. The project adopts a vocational-biographical and habitus-theoretical approach to professionalization research (Wittek & Jacob 2020, Helsper 2018, Kramer & Pallesen 2019) and studies new and experienced mentor teachers (n=20) in primary and secondary hub schools affiliated with two different Swiss universities. In this contribution we’ll give insight into the different mentor teacher orientations that are guiding their action in working with future teachers. Furthermore, we will highlight the ways they negotiate tensions between their orientation and organizational norms (coming from the university).

Our data consists of multiple interviews and audio recordings of student-mentor conversations. Using the documentary method (Bohnsack 2017), the analysis traces their implicit knowledge – e.g. how they frame their role as educators or how they frame the internship and consequently reconstructs a typology of the field-specific teacher educator habitus. 

Our contribution is part of a longer longitudinal study. The data basis for our contribution consists of semi-structured interviews which are analyzed using the documentary method (Bohnsack, 2017). This reconstructive-qualitative method distinguishes between communicatively generalized, explicit knowledge and conjunctive, implicit knowledge, which is usually not reflexively accessible to the actors, but is reflected in their practices of action as well as in their narratives. By accessing the implicit knowledge through narrative passages in the interviews, the habitual orientation frameworks guiding mentor teachers’ actions can be reconstructed. For many years, the documentary method has centered on reconstructing these orientation frameworks, focusing on the subject and their internalized knowledge which are then summarized into a more abstract typology. Recent methodological developments widen the focus and explore how individuals habitually navigate norms such as expectations from the university and examine how the habitus negotiates tensions between orientations and such norms. We analyzed the interview material along comparative dimensions that are relevant for the reconstruction of a teacher educator habitus. A key comparative dimension in our analysis was the mentor teachers’ perception of the dual roles as classroom teacher and teacher educator. Do they remain in the perspective of classroom teacher when speaking of their teacher educator practice or do they also consider aspects of student professionalization? The cases were further analyzed regarding their framing of the practicum as well as their understanding of professionalization. Do they provide the students a space for exploration or development during their practica or do they expect the students to blend into the classroom as assistant teachers? In a second part of the analysis, we examined how they navigated the university’s organizational norms. Do they adhere to or deviate from the norms and how internalized are they? The typology of Swiss mentor teachers was developed through this comparative analysis, with each additional case contributing to the abstraction from individual cases.

In our contribution we will present a typology of mentor teachers in Switzerland based on a comparative analysis of 18 cases, each including multiple interviews. The analysis identified five types of orientations ranging from weak to strong identification with the teacher educator role. The first three types develop a teacher educator habitus, engaging with the role to varying degrees: the first one with a clear dual identity and the second and third with a partial teacher educator identity. The fourth and fifth types remain in the mode of classroom teacher, the fourth type acting with a partial function as mentor teacher and the fifth acknowledging this function only on paper. Each type exhibits distinct approaches toward organizational norms ranging from strong commitment to the university to maximal distance. Those more committed have adopted the institution’s norms, while the others are guided by a logic separating practical training from theoretical university-based courses. Our results show a variety of ways of how mentor teachers understand and perform their role, raising questions about how universities can address this diversity. In our poster presentation we will discuss the following questions: - How can universities support mentor teachers in developing an identity as teacher educators? - How can universities encourage mentor teachers’ participation in the development of practice-oriented concepts? - Given that two of our five mentor teacher types don't develop a teacher educator habitus: what constitutes a constructive learning environment in these practica? What and how can students learn from these mentors teachers? - How can the university adress the diversity of mentor teacher orientations in such a way that students are able to critically reflect on their experiences in practica (regardless of their mentor teacher's orientation)?

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