The discourse surrounding teacher mentoring and induction significantly shapes educational policies, practices, and outcomes. Academic contributions are crucial in framing these concepts, contributing to how mentoring and induction are understood and implemented. However, the ways in which research problems are discursively constructed in different contexts remain underexplored. This study examines how academia contributes to the meaning-making of teacher mentoring and induction, focusing on the discursive practices in published studies from Romania and Moldova. By discussing the findings compared to those documented in other regions in Europe, the research aims to map the diversity of approaches within the broader framework of discursive ecologies in Europe.

How research problems are structured in academic discourses is deeply intertwined with local educational priorities, values, and challenges. In Romania and Moldova, where educational systems grapple with systemic challenges such as retaining highly qualified teachers and fostering effective professional development, mentoring and induction are often positioned as potential solutions (Mitescu-Manea, 2024; Mitescu-Manea et al., 2025). By contrast, in certain Northern European countries with a strong tradition of research-informed educational policies, these concepts are approached from different perspectives (Heikkinen et al., 2025). This study aims to investigate: How are the issues surrounding teacher mentoring and induction framed in academic research from Romania and Moldova? How do these frameworks compare to those found in other regions in Europe? What insights can these variations provide about the discourse practices throughout Europe?

We examine teacher mentoring and induction practices in Romania and Moldova, focusing on how these concepts are constructed in educational research published since 2011 in Romania and 2014 in Moldova. The dataset includes studies from national academic journals, institutional reports, and conference proceedings on teacher mentoring and induction. We also refer to a selection of studies from Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway, published in internationally recognized journals and presented at European research conferences, in a comparable timeframe. This study adopts a qualitative comparative design integrating content analysis with critical discourse analysis (CDA). Data collection involves selecting thematically relevant academic publications from Scopus, Web of Science, and national repositories. Our thematic coding analyzes essential themes and concepts in the chosen studies to uncover patterns. We employ positioning theory (Davies, & Harré, 1990) and CDA to investigate the language and rhetorical strategies used in framing research problems and solutions.

Initial analysis indicates that in Romania and Moldova, academic discourse typically positions teacher mentoring and induction as strategies to enhance classroom practices, tackle teacher shortages, and foster equity. These studies often underscore systemic issues like insufficient resources and minimal institutional support and prompt a deficit perspective to springboard meanings and approaches to teacher induction and mentoring. Conversely, studies from Northern Europe view mentoring and induction as essential elements of teacher professional development, focusing on collaboration, reflective practices, and the incorporation of novice teachers into professional learning communities forefronting the opportunity for learning and professional growth (Skytterstad et al., 2025) . This study enhances our understanding of how academic discursive practices play into the meaning-making processes in teacher mentoring and induction across the varied ecosystem of European practices by mapping the diversity of discursive practices. The results emphasize the significance of contextualized approaches and lay the groundwork for promoting dialogue and collaboration across regions in teacher education research and practice.

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