"It's More Complicated Than I Thought": A Bioecological View of Induction and Mentoring in New Zealand Education and Care Centres

Abstract

The importance of supporting new teachers during their first years in teaching is well recognised. In New Zealand, this support is expected to take the form of an induction and mentoring (I&M) programme of at least two years duration under the guidance of a mentor. Although research on mentoring has been undertaken in schools internationally, very few studies have addressed the mentoring of early childhood teachers. Studies that have occurred in New Zealand have been largely undertaken in kindergartens which have different structural and professional landscapes to education and care centres such as those in which this study is situated. A qualitative case study, this study investigated how the I&M programme was understood and enacted in three contextually different early childhood education and care centres and what factors might have influenced this. The study involved the participation of the leaders, mentor teachers, provisionally certificated teachers (mentees) and their teaching teams in each centre; a total of 22 individuals. The study is underpinned by two theoretical frameworks, bioecological theory and social exchange theory, which were used to inform the selection and analysis of literature, research design, and data analysis. Individual and focus group interviews accessed the espoused views of participants while video observations and stimulated recall captured the enacted practice, particularly of mentors and mentees. Thematic coding was undertaken and then related to the key ideas of bioecological and social exchange theories. Analysis allowed insight into the factors influencing why individuals acted in particular ways within the I&M programmes. It also made visible some of the alignments and disjunctures between the perspectives of participants at the various layers of centre ecology. This thesis argues that it is the complex intersection between what occurs in the social exchanges of participants in induction and mentoring programmes (particularly mentors and provisionally certificated teachers) and the structural enablers and constraints of their given context that determines the success of the programme. When circumstances are challenging, the nature of the social exchanges between mentor and mentee determines the extent to which these challenges are successfully negotiated. Similarly, even when structural conditions are relatively favourable, it is possible that disparate intentions, motivations, and levels of participants engagement result in the I&M programme being less than ideal. The implications of this study for both policy and practice are highlighted and recommendations made to enhance the support of teachers entering the profession,