Identity Construction of Teacher-Mentors

Abstract

An important component in the theory of communities of practice is that of identity. Lave and Wenger (1991) refer to learners’ identities being ‘transformed’ through performing new tasks and demonstrating new understanding. Although the emphasis of their work is on the identity construction of the novice entering a community of practice, existing members of the community of practice itself are also transformed and this results in a two-way process of identity coconstruction (Wenger, 1998). Subsequent studies with respect to teacher education have also placed the emphasis on the professional learning and development of the student-teachers and how they form their identity when entering the teaching profession. However, very few studies have looked at the formation of the teacher-mentors’ identity and their professional learning. This paper focuses on the teacher-mentors and how their identities are constructed during the process of mentoring student-teachers. Wenger (2002) describes three ‘modes of belonging’ in the process of identity formation, namely engagement, imagination and alignment. In order to understand and analyse what constitutes a ‘healthy’ identity, Wenger further proposes three ‘qualities’, namely connectedness, expansiveness and effectiveness. By combining these elements into a matrix structure Wenger suggests that the way each mode of belonging contributes to the three qualities can be explored. Using a case study method, the mentoring experiences of two teacher-mentors are reported and analysed using Wenger’s matrix framework to interpret how their identities are constructed. It should be made clear that this refers to their identity as a mentor. That is, we focus on those elements that strengthen or weaken their identity within the specific community of practice constituted by their mentor role, which includes the school culture and the ‘personalities’ of the other community members.