A Case Study Of Mentor's Mentoring In Primary School ——A Social Capital Perspective

In primary and secondary schools in China,the tradition of mentoring among teachers based on the form of "mentor-apprentice pairing" has long existed.As a training model to promote teachers' professional development,"mentor-apprentice pairing" is a process of establishing and expanding social capital between mentors and apprentices.From the perspective of social interaction,the study analyzes the relationship between mentor and apprentice as well as the influence of the maintenance and expansion of the relationship on the realization and improvement of the mentor's guiding function,which will help to expand people's understanding of the "mentor-apprentice pairing".It also investigates how the model can be promoted by the increase of social capital and how to promote the mutual growth of mentors and apprentices.Based on the perspective of social capital,this study focused on the issue of "mentoring function and realization of mentor teachers in 'mentor-apprentice pairing'".With the orientation of qualitative research,19 mentor and apprentice teachers from D Primary School in S City were selected as participants.Data were collected mainly through in-depth interviews,while data were transcribed,coded and analyzed,and the findings were as follows:First of all,in the "mentor-apprentice pairing" in primary schools,teachers mainly undertake three guiding functions,namely,career guidance,professional knowledge and skill guidance,and social psychological guidance.Among them,career guidance can help apprentices to shape a good professional image,adapt to the early stage of employment and form a positive and correct understanding of the teaching profession.Professional knowledge and skills guidance,involving teaching,management,research and other fields,is to guide the theoretical,practical and reflective knowledge accumulation of apprentices.Social psychological guidance can help relieve tension and anxiety of apprentices and promote the sense of belonging and identity.Secondly,based on the three dimensions of social capital,namely bonding,bridging and linking social capital,the study finds that mentor and apprentice teachers can form,acquire and expand effective social capital in "mentor-apprentice pairing".Within the "pair",mentors and apprentices achieve two-way learning on the basis of mutual commitment,deep trust and information sharing by virtue of bonding social capital.In addition to "pair",mentors and apprentices cross organizational boundaries,rely on bridging social capital to promote heterogeneous interactions,build bridges of communication in a wider range of fields and produce a wide range of social effectiveness.Above the "pairs",linking social capital enables teachers to take advantage of their structural position to obtain and utilize more diversified and high-quality information resources,and to provide teachers with a safe supportive network on the basis of trust relationships across the authority gradient.Thirdly,there are still many problems in the formation,implementation and assessment of the primary school's "mentor-apprentice pairing" model,such as the mismatch of mentoring,the limitation of space and time field on interactive learning,the burden of multiple roles,the expectation gap and cognition difference,the tendency of homogeneity within the organization,the formalization of evaluation content and the finality of evaluation process,etc.By analyzing these problems and their causes,the interviewed teachers presented countermeasures and suggestions such as "two-way selection",expanding teacher training and improving process management,so as to provide appropriate reference for the improvement of the "mentor-apprentice pairing " plan and the reform of the mentoring function of mentors.This study holds that the effective realization of the guiding function of mentors in the "mentor-apprentice pairing" is an important prerequisite and guarantee for the coordinated quality improvement of teacher development in the stage of basic education,and requires the joint participation and sustained efforts of multiple subjects.For example,at the institutional level,policy guidance and standard guidance can be strengthened;at the school level,a reasonable mechanism for inspecting,selecting,matching,monitoring and evaluating teachers can be established.At the same time,teachers and apprentices should also pursue more and higher-quality interactions on the basis of trust and sharing,and gradually cross the boundary of mentoring relationship to expand and obtain high-quality and abundant information resources on a larger scale.At the same time,mentors and apprentices should also pursue more and higher-quality interactions on the basis of trust and sharing,and gradually cross the boundary of mentoring relationship to expand and obtain high-quality and abundant information resources on a larger scale.