Conference Agenda

This symposium series, consisting of three consecutive symposia (3x90 min), is organised by the European network Ecologies of Teacher Induction and Mentoring in Europe (TIME) which has been organised as a network project of the Network 1 “Professional Learning and Development” of EERA since 2021. The aim of the network is to bring together researchers interested in supporting and mentoring new teachers during the induction phase. The network has organised various meetings of researchers to promote cooperation between researchers working on mentoring and induction practices, not only at the ECER conference, but also, for example, at the NERA conference. The network is also in the process of editing a European anthology of this research.

A variety of research and development work on induction and mentoring is explored as a part of teachers’ continuing professional learning and development within a broader ecosystem of educational practices. The research is based on the assumption that induction and mentoring are seen as part of teachers' ongoing professional learning and development and as part of a wider set of practices that can be called an ecosystem of professional development.

The Part 1 of this three-part symposium delves into the multifaceted landscape of teacher development practices across Romania, Moldova, Norway, and Armenia, offering a comprehensive examination of emerging trends and challenges of mentoring practices.

The first paper opens with an analysis of teacher mentoring and induction practices in Romania and Moldova, emphasizing the construction of these concepts in educational policy discourse. By scrutinizing 129 documents, including policy papers, research studies, and conference proceedings, the study reveals variations in implementation and interpretation. Employing the theory of practice architectures, the presenters unravel the non-linear dynamics of mentoring practices, highlighting geopolitical nuances and the impact on beginning teachers' participation.

The second paper discusses teacher education partnerships in Norway, highlighting the critical components for success: skilled leadership, professional learning, and a supporting infrastructure. While positively perceived, partnership models differ, necessitating a rethinking of the connection between campus courses and field experiences. Drawing on historical developments and recent initiatives, the presentation advocates for alignment between partnerships for local competence development and teacher education.

In the third paper, the exploration is extended to Norway's comprehensive revision of teacher education program, introducing a 5-year master-level qualification. The study reveals a research gap in understanding how their acquired research-based competence is acknowledged and supported by school leaders. The theoretical framework of practice architectures guides the analysis, emphasizing the need for informed preparation and inclusive practices during the induction phase. The paper advocates for increased collaboration between NQTs and school leaders.

The fourth paper shifts the focus to Armenia, exploring the conceptualization and practical frameworks of teacher induction and mentoring. The qualitative exploratory study unveils the unique landscape of mentoring practices, emphasizing its role in supporting continuing teachers new to the school. Amidst recent educational reforms, the study probes into the affordances and constraints for induction and mentoring, shedding light on the evolving policy discourses within the Armenian educational system.

We examined teacher mentoring and induction practices in Romania and Moldova, focusing on how these concepts are constructed in educational policy discourse. While both countries recognize mentoring and induction in their policies, variations exist in their implementation and interpretation. Our data set comprised 129 documents, 81 of which are from Romania and 48 from Moldova. Policy documents, research studies, conference proceedings, nationally implemented projects, and international reports are the several categories into which documents in our data set fall. The time frame under investigation is 2011– June 2023 for Romania and 2014– June 2023 for Moldova. Furthermore, we carried out several case studies, specifically concentrating on teacher mentorship and induction, and analyzed 11 thematic initiatives in Romania since 2011 and 4 projects in Moldova. To further our knowledge, we revisited interviews with starting teachers from previous studies (Mitescu-Lupu, 2012; Mitescu, 2014). The positions theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) and architecture of practice theory (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008) were employed in data analysis. Our findings indicate that Moldova views induction as a supportive service, while Romania sees it as supervision. Romania has re-examined mentoring to reshape it as a support strategy but struggles with its implementation. The questions we address in this presentation are: what explains the non-linearity of emerging mentoring and induction practices, and how does it impact beginning teachers’ participation in mentoring? We contend that geopolitical nuances are essential in understanding the relationship between mentoring practices and the conditions in the countries we looked at, where we found that policy alignment often lacks critique and serves political communication strategies. Policy discourse in Romania emphasizes European norms without critical engagement, while in Moldova, alignment reflects a shift away from post-Soviet affiliations. These practices shape teacher identities. Changing mentoring practices requires changing practice architectures (Kemmis et al., 2014). As policies alone prove insufficient to prompt immediate transformations of mentoring practices, we discuss a number of potentially recommendable directions of action, such as the open communication between policymakers, practitioners, and researchers; reassessment of knowledge production and circulation practices in education, along with identifying steps towards decolonizing and diversifying these practices; critically reflecting on conceptualizations of mentoring and induction all categories of participants in these practices operate with. We conclude that mentoring practices' effectiveness depends on the infrastructure of support, training, and communication. Long-term, sustained transformations are needed to support diverse participation and conceptualize changes in mentoring and induction practices in both countries.

Davies, B., & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the theory of social behavior, 20 (1), 43-63. Kemmis, S. & Grootenboer, P. (2008). Situating praxis in practice: practice architectures and the cultural, social and material conditions for practice. In s. Kemmis & T.J. Smith (eds.) Enabling praxis: Challenges for education, pp. 37 -64. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Kemmis, S., Heikkinen, H. L., Fransson, G., Aspfors, J., & Edwards-Groves, C. (2014). Mentoring of new teachers as a contested practice: Supervision, support and collaborative self-development. Teaching and teacher education, 43, 154-164. Mitescu-Lupu, M. (2012) Învățare și profesionalizare în domeniul didactic, Editura Univ. Al.I.Cuza, Iași, România. Mitescu, M. (2014). A Synopsis on Teachers' Learning during Early Stages of Professional Practice. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 149, 595-601, DOI:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.08.233.

Sub-paper had to be withdrawn

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Norway undertook a comprehensive revision of its teacher education programs in 2017, introducing a 5-year master-level qualification for primary and secondary school teachers to address challenges in schools. These challenges included low student performance in core subjects and criticisms of teacher education for being fragmented and too general (Trippestad et al., 2017). The revised programs now emphasize subject specialization in three or four subjects and the development of teachers' research knowledge in scientific theories and methods. This shift aims to better prepare teachers for continuous professional development. However, a significant research gap exists regarding how Norwegian Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) with master's degrees experience leadership practices, posing a potential risk that their research-based competence may not be effectively utilized in educational settings. The current research question is whether and how the research-based competence acquired during teacher education is acknowledged and supported by school leaders for NQTs. The theoretical framework employed for analysis is the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008), emphasizing practices as social phenomena and highlighting three intersubjective spaces where participants interact: through language, in the material world's space-time, and in social relationships. Data collection involves two studies: 1. STEP Study: Conducted through semi-structured interviews (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2018) with eight principals in 2023, focusing on how principals perceive and support NQTs during their initial years of practice. 2. RELEMAST Study: Semi-structured interviews with 27 NQTs at intervals of one, two, three, and five years after completing a piloted master's level teacher education at UiT the Arctic University in Norway from 2015 to 2017. Specific guides developed for each year to capture changes in NQTs' experiences of using research-based knowledge during professional development and how it is received by their leadership. Data analysis follows the thematic approach (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Principals express positivity toward NQTs' new research-based competence but lack in-depth knowledge about it. While supportive of established traditions, they demonstrate a lack of initiative in utilizing this competence during the induction phase. Some NQTs themselves seem to contribute new knowledge to the schools. However, principals often maintain distant relationships with NQTs, delegating support to mentors or teams. There is a notable absence of arenas for NQTs to contribute their competence, indicating a gap in informing and preparing schools and principals for the arrival and inclusion of new NQTs and their unique competencies.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. doi:10.1191/1478088706qp063oa Brinkmann, S., & Kvale, S. (2018). Doing Interviews. Retrieved from http://digital.casalini.it/9781526426093 Kemmis, S., & Grootenboer, P. (2008). Situation praxis in practic. In S. Kemmis & T. J. Smith (Eds.), Enabling praxis: Challenges for education (pedagory, education and praxis) (pp. 37‐62). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Werler, T. (2017). Learning Sciences reconfiguring Authority in Teacher Education. In T. A. Trippestad, A. Swennen, & T. Werler (Eds.), The Struggle for Teacher Education. International Perspectives on Governance and Reforms (pp. 131-147). Bloomsbury Publising.

Generally, mentoring is seen as a supportive strategy for beginning teachers (Pennanen et al., 2015, European Commission, 2010). Mentoring has become the most popular form of teacher induction, impacting the interchangeable use of mentoring and induction (Ingersoll and Smith, 2004). However, the loose utilisation of these terms in the literature suggests a conceptual confusion about their employment. Hence, mentoring has been described as a poorly defined practice that is weakly conceptualised and theorised (Colley, 2003, Bozeman and Feeney, 2007). There is a growing literature that theorises mentoring as social practice (Kemmis, Heikkinen, et al., 2014), hence it is understood as a special kind of social practice that exists amid other social practices (Heikkinen, 2020). Within that understanding, I’ll introduce mentoring and induction practices by presenting their special characteristics and historical developments within the studied educational and political settings. In Armenia, mentoring is also seen as a means of supporting continuing teachers who are new to the school, not to the system. Moreover, mentoring and induction are not officially regulated by the relevant laws (UNICEF, 2022) but highly depend on individual school arrangements and regulations. In this study, I explore the notion of teacher induction and mentoring within the Armenian educational system to reveal the conceptualisation and practical frameworks that underpin induction and mentoring. In the framework of recent educational reforms in Armenia, there is a growing interest in induction and mentoring in policy discourses in the country, particularly within the context of SEN education, continuous teacher development, and teacher shortage. This is a qualitative exploratory study aiming to understand the state of mentoring and induction within the Armenian educational system, understand the conceptualisation of those two notions within various educational documents, and examine the affordances and constraints for induction and mentoring. To this end, I address the following research question: How are the concepts of induction and mentoring, their function and their relationship to teacher continuous professional learning and development conceptualised at the levels of policy and practice? Using the theory of practice architecture (Kemmis and Grootenboer, 2008) I will explore the specific material-economic, social-political and cultural-discursive arrangements to understand the internationally recognisable conceptualisations of mentoring and induction to be able to examine and explain conceptualisations of those two notions within Armenian educational landscape. The data for this analysis consists of policy documents, reviews of research literature and national/international reports documenting teachers’ participation and approaches to mentoring and induction.

Colley, H. (2003). “Engagement Mentoring for ‘Disaffected’ Youth: A New Model of Mentoring for Social Inclusion.” British Educational Research Journal 29 (4): 521–542. Heikkinen, H. L. T. (2020). Understanding mentoring within an ecosystem of practices. In K.-R. Olsen, E. M. Bjerkholt & H. L. T. Heikkinen (Eds.), New teachers in Nordic countries – ecologies of mentoring and induction (Ch. 1, pp. 27–47). Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Ingersoll, R. M., and T. M. Smith. (2004). “Do Teacher Induction and Mentoring Matter?” NASSP Bulletin88: 28 40.10.1177/019263650408863803 Kemmis, S. and Grootenboer, P. (2008). Situating praxis in practice: practice architectures and the cultural, social and material conditions for practice. In s. Kemmis & T.J. Smith (eds.) enabling praxis: Challenges for education (pp. 37 -64). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Kemmis, S., Heikkinen, H. L., Fransson, G., Aspfors, J., and Edwards-Groves, C. (2014). Mentoring of new teachers as a contested practice: Supervision, support and collaborative self-development. Teaching and teacher education, 43, 154-164 Pennanen, M., Bristol, L., Wilkinson, J., and Heikkinen, H.L.T (2015). What is ‘good’ mentoring? Understanding mentoring practices of teacher induction through case studies of Finland and Australia. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1083045