Rethinking mentor roles and relationships: An exploration of discourse communities and beginning teacher identity

The purpose of this study was to explore two beginning teachers and the influences of formal and informal mentoring relationships on their first year of teaching. State and local initiatives mandate that beginning teachers participate in mentoring through induction programs. This study analyzed which experiences and relationships were formative to a beginning teacher's thinking.;A qualitative case study framed the methodology for this investigation. This study was conducted in one school district with two first-year elementary teachers and their formal mentors. To capture the multiple historical and present significant guiding influences on the first-year's teaching practice, the research involved nine months of classroom observations, multiple session interviews, document and artifact analysis.;Bakhtin's (1981, 1986, 1990) theories on dialogic selfhood and the affective nature of identity construction formed the theoretical foundation for this study. I used Discourse perspective (Gee, 1996, 1999, 2001) to analyze the social mediation of the beginning teachers' identities and to examine the Discourses the first-year teachers' appropriated into their teaching identity through informal and formal mentoring relationships.;Analyses of the data using a comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1998) revealed that life history was central in initiating a teaching identity and emotions play an important role in the identity formation of beginning teachers. The beginning teachers' identities were influenced by significant individuals and experiences from their life history and the informal mentoring relationships established with veteran colleagues. Development of an affective connection with the informal mentor was an important aspect of the informal mentoring relationship. The most critical findings included illuminating evidence of how: new teachers were influenced and constrained by their individual life histories and institutional biographies and how relationships with veteran colleagues who serve as informal mentors can undermine potentially emancipatory teaching practices learned during teacher education coursework. The conclusion discusses implications for teacher education programs and support systems for beginning teachers including: critical reflection coupled with opportunities to work for appropriation of a non-dominant Discourse during teacher education coursework, and a university-based mentor to assist first-year teachers with using more critical and emancipatory Discourses while they are situated within the school culture.