Mentoring relationships in doctoral education: Doctoral students' socialization into communities of practice

This dissertation investigated mentoring relationships between doctoral students and their faculty mentors in a school of education. The goal was to understand the experiences and expectations that guide mentors' and students' practices to learn what roles mentoring plays in doctoral students' socialization as educational researchers. Most theories of mentoring are based on career success models, yet they do not capture the unique developmental character of doctoral education. A second goal was to test the utility of Lave and Wenger's (1991) theory of situated learning, legitimate peripheral participation (LPP), as a model for mentoring relationships in doctoral education.;In-depth interviews with ten exemplary mentors and 24 of their students from one school of education were conducted to learn the "in-vivo" workings of these relationships. Constant comparative methodology guided the inquiry. A multi-step content analytic procedure was used to analyze the data and generate descriptive themes.;Four themes grounded in LPP emerged to describe the role faculty-student mentoring plays in doctoral students' socialization into communities of practice: how to be an academic; collaborative participation in the practices of the educational research community; communicating with professional communities; becoming successful members of the educational research community.;LPP accurately described the students training as educational researchers, yet it was not adequate to describe the affective side of the relationships. Kram's (1985) theory of psychosocial mentoring was used to understand the contribution psychological and social support made to these students' socialization. Participants' comments supported Kram's (1985) theory. Four psychosocial functions were crucial to students' overall experience of their mentoring relationships: role modeling; acceptance and confirmation; counseling; and friendship.;There were also obstacles to the relationships which the theory of LPP did not anticipate. Partially skilled mentors, mismatched research interests, and heavy demands on faculty mentors' time impeded students' participation and learning. To ameliorate these challenges, students crafted multiple mentoring relationships with other faculty and researchers. Conceptualizing mentoring relationships in a community of practice offers students multiple role models, potential theory communities, and people to fill mentoring roles.