Context Matters: Contextual Factors Informing Mentoring in Art Initial Teacher Education

Abstract

This article explores the contextual factors that shape mentoring practice in Art Initial Teacher Education. Based on in-depth interviews, nonparticipant observations and stimulated recall interviews with participants, we examine how various factors related to the context of mentors’ work influence their approaches to subject matter mentoring. Adopting a discursive stance to mentoring, we use critical discourse analysis to expose connections between mentors’ language, ideas, and beliefs and the broader context of subject matter mentoring. In each mentoring setting studied, the analysis surfaces distinctive contextual factors that are grounded in mentors’ interpretations of the roles and functions of their subject matter domains. We show how these factors inform mentors’ perceptions of the purposes and processes of mentoring and their enactments in practice. Our findings offer an extended perspective to subject matter mentoring and new directions for thinking about context in mentoring. Implications for mentor preparation and selection are discussed.

Keywords

mentoring preservice teacher education discourse analysis art teacher education

Introduction

Mentoring is central to learning to teach. As such, mentoring frameworks have become integral to Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs (Ambrosetti, 2014). During this initial stage of preparation, mentors assist novices to acquire knowledge of pupils, of teaching and of standard routines that integrate classroom management, pedagogy, and subject matter instruction (Hashweh, 2013). Mentors’ ability to promote such learning is not only a matter of their competence and knowledge but is also influenced by contextual factors of their practice (Knoblauch & Hoy, 2008). Different contextual factors in mentors’ work might yield different interpretations of teaching and professional duties, affecting the mentoring roles and practices espoused and enacted. For example, we know that the institution within which mentors work affects their professional motivation and ideas of learning to teach. School-based mentors see themselves primarily as schoolteachers rather than teacher educators (Livingston, 2014). Thus, their professional motivation is affected by the agendas of the school community—a contextual factor that informs their views of learning to teach. Mentors in higher education contexts are engaged in research (Zeichner, 2005). Their professional dispositions are affected by agendas promoted by their research community—a contextual factor that informs their deliberations, such as how to integrate theory into their mentoring (Loughran, 2006).

Furthermore, while certain contextual factors in mentors’ work might help to reconcile between incompatible agendas, others could intensify conflicts. For example, contextual features of arts education (which our study explores) could create conflicts: For one, the arts embed values such as freedom, flexibility, and choice. These often clash with values of standardization, rationality, and uniformity prevalent in Western schooling tradition (Eisner, 2004). These tensions can be problematic for mentors when mediating student teacher (ST) learning, especially around content pedagogical issues. In addition, the praxical character of the arts carries complex interrelations between theory and practice (Pearse, 1992). The academic scholarship of the arts might promote views of subject matter learning that are different from those endorsed by the artists’ community. The affiliations of mentors in relation to these contexts (as artists, scholars or both) could influence the views of learning arts that they model to STs. Conflicts between disciplinary and educational approaches to learning are found in most school subjects (Goodson & Marsh, 2005). Our study examines how mentors in arts education are affected by such contextual dispositions. Studying this issue can shed light on how mentors in a particular subject matter area mediate knowledge for ST learning of subject matter teaching. This can be used to improve their preparation in different subject matter areas.

Purpose

This article explores contextual factors that shape how teachers mentor, including the beliefs and theories that inform their practice. Specifically, we examine how factors related to the context of ITE in arts education inform mentors’ articulations and enactments of mentoring in their respective subject domains. We aim to surface interrelations between mentoring roles, mentoring practices, and the context of mentoring. First, we review relevant literature on what we know about (a) mentors’ roles and practices, (b) the knowledge base for mentoring, and (c) contextual aspects of mentoring. The consolidation of literature in these areas serves to ground our theoretical framework, presented in the second part of this section.

Mentors’ Roles and Practices

A vast body of research deals with mentors’ roles and functions, often pointing to conceptual confusions regarding the meaning of mentoring, especially in ITE (Hennissen, Crasborn, Brouwer, Korthagen, & Bergen, 2008). This has resulted in multiple roles assigned to teacher mentors, ranging from providing forms of emotional, cognitive, instrumental, and social support (Koster, Korthagen, & Wubbels, 1998; Williams & Soares, 2002); communicating, coordinating, and mediating between stakeholders (Davies & Harrison, 1995); to directing and assessing mentored learning (Ell & Haigh, 2015). For example, mentors assume roles associated with developing knowledge and skills in teaching, establishing supportive interpersonal relationships, enhancing reflection and professional identity formation, and advancing partnership frameworks (Fairbanks, Freedman, & Kahn, 2000). Mentors, thus, adopt multiple functions as providers of emotional and professional support, supervisors, critical evaluators, and facilitators of team teaching and collaboration (Hall, Draper, Smith, & Bullough, 2008). Jones (2001) concludes that while mentoring can be defined generically across cultural boundaries, it bears culturally specific traits which manifest themselves in the emphasis put on different aspects of mentors’ roles. This line of study suggests that mentors in different contexts prioritize and adopt certain roles and neglect others. Examining contextual factors that inform such deliberations can shed light on how mentoring roles are constructed and enacted.

An additional area of interest in ITE mentoring revolves around mentors’ performance. Hudson (2013) depicts practical strategies that mentors use to mediate pedagogical knowledge and practices, while assisting STs’ planning, timetabling lessons, preparation, teaching strategies, problem solving, assessment of teaching, and so on. Some studies examine mentors’ performance during professional conversations with mentees. While several studies point to general strategies (Sempowicz & Hudson, 2011) and contents (Hennissen, Crasborn, Brouwer, Korthagen, & Bergen, 2010) of mentoring dialogues, others focus on those that promote particular desired ends, like stimulating reflection, enhancing child-centered pedagogy, and challenging professional thinking (Athanases & Achinstein, 2003; Crasborn, Hennissen, Brouwer, Korthagen, & Bergen, 2008; Rachamim & Orland-Barak, 2016). Overall, mentors use a wide spectrum of skills and strategies to make what they know accessible to others and to enhance professional thinking. However, their commitments to such an endeavor and the opportunities they take differ across contexts. Examining how contextual factors shape such commitments could contribute to creating a more sophisticated picture of mentor performance.

The Knowledge Base for Mentoring

Seeking to improve mentors’ performance, efforts have been made to define the adequate knowledge base for mentoring (Athanases et al., 2008; Orland-Barak, 2010). ITE mentors’ knowledge focuses on “which candidates should become teachers, on how pupils’ learning is central, and on how mentors and novices can perceive of teaching as a collective responsibility” (Parker-Katz & Bay, 2008, p. 1259). Specifically, their knowledge about teaching is practice oriented and is grounded in their professional and personal experiences (Clarke, Killeavy, & Moloney, 2013). Mentors’ knowledge was also found to be bi-level, targeting both students and teachers (Achinstein & Athanases, 2005). Shulman’s model of teacher knowledge was used as an analogical conceptual framework to describe mentors’ knowledge (Jones & Straker, 2006). Hence, mentors’ knowledge is deeply rooted in their teaching knowledge. Their knowledge of working with pupils in school is then adjusted to working with adult learners in ITE. This invites examination of how particular contextual aspects of mentors’ work inform their adjustments of knowledge from one learning setting to another.

Contextual Aspects of Mentoring

Few studies point to contextual factors that influence mentoring activity, especially structural and organizational conditions of ITE: resources for preparing and rewarding mentors (Lee & Feng, 2007; Simpson, Hastings, & Hill, 2007), the school system timetable (Bullough, 2005), mentors’ involvement in the program design (Edwards, 1998), and the degree of coherence between parties (Hobson et al., 2008). Thus, mentoring practices are shaped, to a large extent, by the school context, the curriculum, and the organization of teaching (Wang & Odell, 2002). Wang (2001) identifies three instructional contexts that shape mentoring practice: structure of school curriculum and assessment, organization of teaching and mentoring, and student population. Koster et al. (1998) show that mentors’ context of work entails particular domains of knowledge and generates specific roles. These studies focus on cross-contextual differences between structures and institutional settings of ITE. A missing perspective, however, is a direct consideration of mentors’ declared and enacted perceptions of context. Almost no research that we know of explores the contextual factors that mentors consider in their professional talk to inform and enact their practice. Such perspective can add a new angle to the study of context in mentoring by highlighting connections between social context and action through language. This invites a discursive stance to the study of mentoring, which focuses on professional talk as reflective of how social and cultural environments inform mentors’ thought and practice.

Theoretical Framework: A Discursive Stance to the Study of ITE Mentoring

Research on mentoring has begun to focus on aspects of diversity, culture, power relations, and context (Hamel & Jaasko-Fisher, 2011; Orland-Barak, 2010). This direction is grounded in a sociocultural perspective to human activity as entrenched in social, cultural, and institutional contexts (Bronckart, 1995). Here, mentoring is recognized as “an intellectual, cultural and contextual activity” (Cochran-Smith, 2004, p. 298) and learning is viewed as culturally mediated through active participation within the social world (Wertsch, 1991). This implies that mentoring draws on the knowledge, norms, and values of the particular professional and cultural context within which it operates (Feiman-Nemser, Schwille, Carver, & Yusko, 1999).

Professional language constitutes the main signifying system through which mentors’ ideas about teaching and learning to teach are communicated to novices (Edwards & Collison, 1995). In sociocultural perspectives, language is the means through which mentors signify the values and codes of behavior guiding their actions (Boag-Munroe, 2010). A sociocultural reading of mentors’ discourse as informed by contextual factors invites an analytical lens which focuses on the connection between language use and context. Such a lens is found in the theoretical framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA). Here, professional discourse is viewed as a social practice conditioned by broader social contexts and relations of power (Gee, 2004). In this vein, discourse is not just a set of linguistic units but also a contextually grounded framework for thinking and acting (Gee, 1996). This definition speaks to Gee’s (1999) “CDA” framework for distinguishing between two types of discourse in language use: “discourse,” referring to the pieces of language uttered and “Discourse,” referring to socially established ways of thinking, being, acting, knowing, valuing, and believing through language. CDA allows us to expose the ways in which extant contextual forces operate to shape mentoring practices.

Drawing on the above, we ask:

What contextual factors do mentors ascribe as influential to their mentoring practices?

How do these inform the way they perceive the purposes, processes and enactments of mentoring?

Research Methodology

Context and Participants

Israeli ITE operates mostly through BEd programs in academic teacher colleges, or through teaching certification programs, in university education schools (Mor, 1993). All ITE programs follow the Guiding Outlines for Initial Teacher Education in Higher Education Institutions, set by the Higher Education Council (HEC; 2006). These require various courses in teaching, learning, and educational research, including a subject matter teaching methods course (4 weekly hours). ITE incorporates a field experience component (6 weekly hours), supported by mentoring frameworks, ranging from single-placement apprenticeship to professional development school.

Arts education constitutes a particularly relevant area for examining influential contextual factors in mentors’ work: The low status of arts in school curricula (Eisner, 2004) promotes unequal power relations between the mentor’s domain of expertise and the school priorities; the praxical character of the arts embeds intricate interrelations between art theory and practice (Pearse, 1992), surfacing tensions between theoretical and practical aspects of learning art in mentors’ work. Such tensions juxtapose between different social contexts to which mentors might feel accountable (the school, artistic practice, and art theory). It is reasonable to believe that mentors from different artistic domains rely differently on these contexts to inform their mentoring, due to unique conditions of their subject domains. In this respect, comparing between mentors from various artistic domains could surface ways in which subject matter expertise interplays with contextual factors to affect mentors’ work. Hence, we focus on mentors from three artistic domains: theater, music, and the visual arts.¹

For deeply exploring mentors’ work, we adopted a case study methodology (Stake, 2000). This permitted a detailed investigation of the thoughts, practices and conditions of particular individuals in a particular setting. We defined each mentor as “a case,” reflecting unique perceptions of mentoring and subject matter teaching, typical practices and styles of discourse, and unique conditions that influence the particular artistic domain. To compare between mentors from different artistic domains, we designed a collective case study (Stake, 1994) of five mentors in visual arts, theater, and music. The individual cases were compared and contrasted to explore issues related to contextual factors affecting mentoring practices in each subject domain.

The cases were selected according to the following criteria regarding mentors’ work: (a) ITE programs in academic institutions sponsored by the HEC or Ministry of Education; (b) institutions that offered both undergraduate studies in the artistic domain and a teaching diploma track for national education in that domain; (c) mentors worked with at least two STs at the year of data collection; and (d) mentors having at least 5 years of experience in mentoring and over 10 years in teaching. Sixteen programs (five in music, four in theater, and seven in the visual arts) met our criteria, out of which five were selected according to location, accessibility, and level of administrative cooperation. Table 1 presents information about the selected programs. After receiving official approval from the ITE programs, we contacted mentors that met our criteria (13) and their STs, asking for their cooperation in the study. Eventually, six mentors who agreed to participate in the study received their mentees’ approval to take part in the research. One mentor left the study in initial stages of data collection due to personal reasons. In the visual arts, we studied two college mentors, Hila² and Sarah. In theater, we studied two high school teacher mentors, Aviva and Galit. In music, we studied Gabi, the college mentor. Table 2 summarizes information about participants.

Table 1.

Information About Mentors’ Teacher Education Programs.

Subject matter	Type of TE program	Program duration	Mentoring functions	Scope of field experience	Average time devoted to mentoring conversations	Certificate
Visual arts	Teachers college Professional Development School (PDS)	4 years	College mentors only	2 years (2nd & 3rd year); Once a week, 4 hr	2 hr a week	BEd in visual arts education + teaching diploma for elementary & secondary schools
Theater	University teaching diploma track (for Bachelors in Theater)	2 years	School teacher mentors only	1 year (1st or 2nd year); Once a week, 4 hr	1 hr once a week	BA in theater + Teaching diploma in Theater for secondary school
Music	College-school-conservatorium partnership	3 years	College mentor & cooperating teacher mentor	3 years; Once a week, 4 hr (1st year) Twice a week, 8 hr (2nd & 3rd years)	3-4 hr a month with college mentor 1 hr a week with cooperating teacher	BEd in music education + teaching diploma for elementary school

Note. TE = teacher education.

Table 2.

Information About Participants.

Mentor pseudonym	Subject matter	Years mentoring	Place of work as a mentor	Bachelor degree	Master’s degree	PhD
Sarah	Visual Arts	Over 15 years	College for Education	Bachelor of Education in Visual Arts	Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts	PhD in Visual Arts
Hila	Visual Arts	Over 10 years	College for Education	Bachelor of Design + Teaching diploma certificate	Master of Education	—
Galit	Theater	Over 9 years	University TE program	Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts + Teaching certificate	Master of Arts in Theatre	—
Aviva	Theater	Over 10 years	University TE program	Bachelor of Arts (Hebrew Literature) + Teaching certificate	Master of Education	—
Gabi	Music	Over 15 years	College for Education	Bachelor of Education in Music	Master of Fine Arts in Music	PhD in Music

Note. TE = teacher education.

Positionality of the Researcher

During the study, the first author served as a graduate student at the Department of Teacher Education, with background in the arts (visual arts and literature) and special education. This position contributed to her insight on art theory and practice, and on pedagogical thinking. However, she had no experience in teaching art in school, which might have limited her understanding of matters related to school teaching. The second author served as an academic advisor and was head of the Department of Teacher Education, specializing in mentoring and English as a foreign languange education. Her rich academic and practical background in school teaching and mentoring informed her insight on mentoring practices, school curricula, and professional discourse. Given her role, she was in a position to exert considerable power over mentors who participated in the study. To limit such power relations, she was not directly involved in recruitment and data collection processes. In analysis stages, she had received the transcribed data in an anonymous manner with no details exposing the mentor’s identity.

Data Collection

Adopting a collective case study approach (Stake, 2000), we combined several research tools for documenting mentors’ talk and actions “about,” “on,” and “in” (Argyris & Schön, 1974; Schön, 1991) mentoring activity:

We first conducted an in-depth, semistructured interview (Kvale, 2008) with each mentor, to elicit their ideas, stances, and understandings (Spradley, 1979) of mentoring in their domain. The interview lasted between 90 and 140 min and was often conducted in two separate sessions. Throughout the interview, we used descriptive and structural questions (Kvale, 1996) to expose mentors’ organization of knowledge. We used contrasting questions to allow mentors to express their dispositions in relation to distinctive characteristics of their mentoring (Orland-Barak, 2010). At a later stage, the questions pertained to mentors’ understandings of the mentoring settings. See Appendix A for sample questions from the interview guide.

In each case, we conducted three to five nonparticipant observations (Fetterman, 1998) during mentoring sessions, maintaining minimal contact with participants (Allwright & Bailey, 1991). Observations focused on mentor’s articulations and actions during mentoring interactions, conducted in participants’ mother tongue (Hebrew). To get an impression of the mentoring sessions, see background descriptions in Appendix B. We recorded the observations with a digital video camera and transcribed them, anonymously, for analysis. During the observations, we took field notes that documented descriptions of the settings, facilities, and activities, including reflective comments and interpretations.

Following every observation, we conducted a stimulated recall interview (Bloom, 1953) with the mentor. We presented the video recording of the recent observation to the mentor for stimulating reflection-on-action (Schön, 1991). The mentors were instructed to stop the video when they wanted to elaborate on thinking processes that guided their actions, their emotional reactions to events, and personal beliefs that informed their understandings during the session. All interviews were recorded with a digital device. These were transcribed anonymously in original language for analysis.

Data Analysis

A discursive perspective to mentoring invites an analytical tool for identifying contextual factors as reflected in mentors’ talk and enactments of mentoring. CDA is particularly appropriate for making connections between mentors’ language, ideas, and beliefs and broader contexts of mentoring. Gee’s (1999) analytical framework of six “building tasks” was used to analyze mentors’ talk. According to this framework, practitioners construct six areas of reality through language, called “building tasks,” inviting questions to characterize participants’ attitudes: What counts as knowledge, and what ways of knowing are appreciated and activated (Semiotic building task); what is taken as “reality,” possible and impossible (World building task); what activities or specific actions take place (Activity building task); what identities and relationships are relevant to the interaction including attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and actions (Socioculturally situated identity and relationship building task); what relevant “social goods” (status, power, etc.) are constructed (Political building task); and how do assumptions about the past and future of an interaction connect to the present and to each other (Connection building task)? Although not every account gave evidence to all building tasks, the analysis provided a deeply grained characterization of mentors’ practices with a special focus on their political and social constitution.

Further on in the analysis, Discourse, with a capital D (Gee, 1999) served as an analytical construct for discerning the contextual factors that shape mentors’ sense of ITE mentoring. Discourses are ways of demonstrating membership in certain social groups through language; hence, they point to broader contextual factors that inform mentors’ practice. Therefore, after applying the building task analysis, we searched for linguistic patterns and cues denoting normative codes, values, and ideologies of different social and cultural groups with which mentors associate. Thus, while analyzing the mentor’s segments of talk, we asked ourselves: What social or cultural identity does it reflect (e.g., an artist, a scientist, a schoolteacher); what social or professional ideology is articulated (e.g., progressive education, behaviorism, standardization); what social and cultural references are mentioned (e.g., art history, local community, school administration); and what cultural resources are mentioned (e.g., policy regulations, school documents, artistic materials)? These cues directed us to define the social Discourses that mentors activate in their work, while surfacing contextual factors that shape mentoring.

Ethical Considerations

The university’s ethics committee and the Department of Science at the Ministry of Education granted ethical approval for the study. Mentor and ST participants were provided with an oral explanation and information sheets and signed informed consent forms. Participants were informed of their right to withdraw from the study at any point, in relation to all data collection methods. Program heads where participants worked received information detailing the research process and approved its conduct. Data were collected by one of the researchers with advanced background in qualitative research methods. The first author transcribed the observations and interviews in an anonymous fashion to prevent exposing mentor identity to the second author. The transcripts were sent to participants and received their approval for use in the research.

Findings

The analysis surfaced contextual factors in each domain that inform mentors’ perceptions and enactments of the purposes and processes of mentoring. Specifically, we identified three emergent themes for the examined domains: factors informing mentoring relating to societal functions of artistic practice (in visual arts); factors informing mentoring relating to school subject curricular considerations (in theater); and factors informing mentoring relating to theories of learning the particular discipline (in music).

Factors Informing Mentoring in Visual Arts: The Societal Functions of Artistic Practice

The analysis reveals that Sarah and Hila perceive visual arts teaching as enacting two societal functions of visual arts as a form of practice: an individual channel for communicating inner creativity and emotions, or a means for supporting external needs of the social surrounding. These speak to intersections between autonomic and heteronomic tendencies of the visual arts in Western culture (Bourdieu, 1996). The former espouses that the visual arts strive to exist independently in the subjective realm (Stankiewicz, 2007), encouraging the expression of learners’ intrinsic artistic abilities (Vallance, 2004). The latter suggests that the visual arts exist as subordinated to social support and serve external social needs of artistic production (Stankiewicz, 2007). These perceptions affect the mentors’ practices: On the one hand, Sarah encourages STs’ to express their creativity in the classroom and Hila instructs them to encourage children to express their emotions through artistic work. On the other hand, Sarah and Hila emphasize high standards of artifact production as to contribute to the aesthetic and pragmatic needs of the school and the community.

Communicating Individual Creativity and Emotions

Sarah and Hila’s mentoring encourages authentic, individual creative expression of both STs and pupils. Sarah, for example, encourages STs to express their individual creativity when working with their pupils. She notes, “Being creative doesn’t necessarily mean you can pass it on to others. Many talented STs won’t be able to become visual arts teachers. You need to learn how to give of yourself in the classroom.” To this end, Sarah supports STs in designing their teaching according to personal artistic interest, as she explicitly instructs her mentee during their meeting: “If you have in mind any ideas, themes, artists or any direction for teaching in class, we would go with that.” Sarah also aims at raising STs’ awareness of the forms that creative expression and individual emotional response take in teaching. For example, trying to further develop Danit’s thinking about her teaching, during their conversation, Sarah uses questions such as the following:

Sarah: What do you think the artist is trying to express with those movements?

What messages will the pupils be able to convey through the posters?

How will you bring them to work on their own creations?

How will they feel working with this material?

Hila stresses the function of visual arts to improve pupils’ self-esteem and to reduce violence and vandalism. She notes, for example, “When you give someone something pretty, it elevates their self esteem.” Throughout the data, she highlights emotional and psychological benefits of visual arts for pupils’ well-being, such as the “meditative and therapeutic role of drawing “mandalas,” the “calming effect of working with clay,” and “allow[ing] pupils to enter an emotional aspect of artistic work” in class.

For Sarah, helping STs to communicate their individual creativity through teaching involves “first and foremost listening to the ST.” This necessitates gradual acquaintance with STs, as she describes:

It is a process in which you need to read your students during many sessions. Once a week, maybe more, I sit down and talk to them . . . slowly, I get to know them and learn about them.

Sarah admits that this acquaintance directs her individual instruction of each mentee: “I listen to each of the STs and as one chooses a certain topic to teach in class, I direct her through our dialogue and she can come up with new creative things.” As evident in the mentoring sessions observed, Sarah constantly encourages mentees to elaborate on their artistic motivations and their application to teaching. In Hila’s mentoring, substantial parts of the conversations are dedicated to examining pupil’s emotional responses to artistic work. Such issues are developed through direct queries and comments during the mentoring conversation, such as the following:

Hila: Did he [the pupil] manage to stay calm while working with the bowl?

What was her [the pupil’s] mood like?

It’s the working with clay that surfaced these emotions

Our work is not therapeutic, but definitely very emotional.

Meeting External Social Needs

The two mentors aspire to meet external social needs of the student teaching environment through the visual arts. Sarah seeks to assist STs in aligning with the school’s aesthetic and educational needs. She notes that STs are committed to disseminate the school’s agenda (e.g., the weekly theme), to meet the school needs (e.g., assessment, requests, projects, events), and be responsible for aesthetic aspects such as exhibitions, displays, and walls decoration. Hila also views her work with STs as contributing to the aesthetic environment of the local community. For her, working as a mentor implies promoting the aesthetic dimensions of artistic practice:

“We should strive to get the best for the eye, the prettiest, to show that it has significance and that nothing is coincidental. . . We need to aim for the highest possible level in terms of artistic quality.

Aiming for high artistic standards during mentoring sessions, Hila stresses aesthetic features of STs’ work in class and the creation of artifacts for school and the community. To this end, her comments during mentoring conversations often turn mentees’ attention to considerations pertaining to the material aspects of their work in class:

Hila: Are the bowls you intend to create personal?

The sculpture’s leg they have made was shaped much more square than intended . . .

You should notice this is a different shape than the other pattern. You should decide which one you are going to use.

The mentors promote processes centered on the production of artistic outcomes for institutional and social needs mainly through collaborative mentoring activities. For Sarah, working with STs in a school system necessitates uniformity and synchronization, as she contends: “There should be a connection between us [the STs] and the school system . . . Since we work at school we have to be an integral part of it.” To this end, she organizes mentoring sessions to ensure that STs discuss aesthetic standards and to decide collaboratively. She notes that in these meetings:

We meet together . . . to talk about what counts as artistic success, how we work on a coming holiday in school, how we decorate the hallways, what a presentation board is, how we organize an exhibition—to whom it addresses.

Hila also sees visual arts as a collaborative endeavor serving the general community. Modeling her own habits and dispositions as an artist, she organizes collaborative mentoring activities for STs to work together. Here, it is the collaborative nature of Hila’s artistic work that informs her construal of mentoring processes:

As a designer, which is my main occupation, I also carry out collaborative community projects . . . So, I think it is right to educate the STs for it . . . The collaborative group work allows us to connect to the visual arts. I wrote my thesis on how artistic work influences the surrounding. This is what I want to introduce to the STs.

Hila sees group work as an opportunity to “help out and share relevant materials . . . we look together to pick the best examples and they experience the techniques they plan to use in class.” During observations, at the beginning of field day, she meets with the group of STs to prepare materials for their teaching. She walks around and gives practical advice regarding artistic procedures and models artistic skills, such as when to add water to the color powder and so forth.

Factors Informing Mentoring in Theater: School Subject Curricular Considerations

The analysis reveals that mentoring in theater is perceived as a channel to assist prospective teachers to overcome challenges deriving from the conditions of theater curricula in the schooling system. The mentors, thus, interpret theater as a subject domain taught at school. Galit stresses the theory–practice divide in theater education leading to gaps between the teacher education program and the reality of schools (Quinn & Kahne, 2001). Thus, she seeks to familiarize STs with curricular considerations of teaching theater that are relevant for teaching in the classroom. These pertain especially to classroom management, teaching methods, official curriculum requirements, and pupils’ learning. Aviva is sensitive to the low status of theater in school curricula (Schonman, 2005), focusing on exposing STs to challenges of theater teaching in school, including relationships with pupils, parents, and school management, gaining authority over contents and other aspects of school politics.

Reducing the Theory–Practice Gap in Theater Education

Galit directs her mentoring to reducing gaps between university studies and real school settings, as she notes in her interview: “It’s important that [STs] accept the fact that the reality of the school is entirely different from what they teach at the university.” Specifically, Galit relates to the gap she recognizes between the content that STs learn and what she thinks they should know to teach the national curriculum. She mentions that mentees “learn anything from everything, since they choose whatever courses they want. Then, they come to school and they don’t have the necessary knowledge . . . they should learn what they need to teach for matriculation exams.” Galit expresses the need to attend to these gaps in her mentoring: “I should pay more attention to the fact that they don’t always come with that necessary knowledge.” To this end, she evaluates STs’ ability to integrate content knowledge into their teaching activities. Reflecting on her actions, she refers to this aim:

[the ST] should have explained the contents pupils learned from doing that exercise . . . She should have explicitly elaborated on what went well in terms of dramatic contents, not just say “very good.” . . . She should have connected the lesson to contents learned in previous lessons.

Trying to make STs’ learning relevant to practice, Galit promotes their direct practical experiences in classroom settings. She believes that “STs practice teaching in my class because they cannot learn otherwise. The best way to learn is by doing in practice.” She directs them to articulate pedagogical considerations behind their actions as they “talk about why someone acted in a certain way or why she [ST] said a certain thing in class.” In Galit’s feedback, she often advises the ST to connect every teaching strategy to the relevant contents that the pupils have already learned in class. For example, she criticizes Julia for not doing so in her lesson summary:

Galit: The pupils already learned the meaning of terms like conflict, relationship, and character in theater. You should have included these terms in the lesson.

During mentoring sessions, she also focuses on examining and assessing various aspects of didactics, such as time management, transitions between activities, giving instructions to pupils, presenting lesson goals, feedback on performance, and summing up the lesson.

Dealing With the Low Status of Theater at School

Aviva wishes to expose STs to the challenges of teaching theater, due to its low status at school. In many occasions she describes the unstable state of theater in school: “There is a dispute over the importance of theater with the school management . . . The theater class depends on management support. There would be a serious problem, if they don’t sustain the theater class.” Aviva makes STs aware of these conditions by introducing common problems in teaching theater in school. She targets her mentoring at bridging between mentees’ ideal perceptions of teaching theater and their realization in actual teaching. Therefore, she thinks STs should “see the real difficulties and experience my own frustrations with the pupils and with school administration.” Aviva often shares these difficulties with mentees during mentoring conversations, for example, she tells, Yafit, her mentee,

Aviva: I had a lot of arguments in which school management told me that mathematics is about real life and theater is just an addition. They conveyed the message that theater is not as important as other subject domains in schools.

The low status of theater in school settings directs Aviva to share positive and negative teaching incidents with STs, highlighting the importance of conducting an open and sincere dialogue. Through these dialogues, she conveys a realistic image of teaching: “The most significant part of my mentoring is the dialogue in which we talk and discuss everything . . . I share my indecisions and doubts about the pupils, about school staff, about school management.” During observations, Aviva talks about confronting school management on matters of resources and dramatic contents:

Aviva: The vice principal told me I should consult them about which plays to put on stage. No way I am going to ask them what play to put on. It is my domain . . . people in arts should fight for their own interests and what they think is right.

In another instance, she emphasizes the educational benefits of debating around which dramatic contents are displayed in school:

Aviva: The kids noticed what was going on and we had a discussion on censorship and what is worthy of theatrical display.

In addition, Aviva often mentions to her mentees the activist, political role of theater teachers in raising awareness, and encouraging others to recognize and support theater activity in school:

Aviva: Theater teachers have to be involved in the school’s social life . . . for letting people learn about theater activity in school . . . marketing is the name of the game.

Factors Informing Mentoring in Music: Theories of Learning the Discipline

The analysis surfaces that music mentoring is perceived as a platform for implementing competing theories of learning the music discipline. Gabi’s constant move from stressing behaviors to stressing appreciation and self-critique is informed by cognitive theories of learning music (Thompson & Schellenberg, 2002). In addition, Gabi’s mentoring often decomposes STs’ teaching experiences and lesson plans into micro-units of teaching to review their actions. This mediation reflects more behaviorist theories of learning music, which connect content units with structured didactical procedures (Kratser, 2007) and modeling steps sequenced in an entire unit.

Cognitive Theories of Learning Music Informing Mentoring

Reflecting a cognitive approach to music education, Gabi’s mentoring stresses two purposes of learning music: performance and conceptualization. In her view, the teacher’s musical performance in the class should have an emotional effect on the pupils. Thus, in her mentoring, she pays special attention to developing STs’ musical skills. She explains her view of STs’ musical performance in class as a means to enhance pupils’ cognitive and emotional processes: “First and foremost, in my mentoring, I request from STs that their own musicality be the main mediating channel for developing pupils’ musicality.” She explains that “through musical performance, [STs] touch the pupil’s cognition and emotions. The more nuances and interpretations the performance includes, the more impact it has on pupils’ emotions and cognition.” Thus, she encourages high standards of STs’ musical performance, wishing to enhance pupils’ motivation and thinking. This purpose directs Gabi’s expectations from mentees, in how they perform in class, as she explains: “The ST needs to sit down or stand up holding an instrument . . . to learn the song by heart, to look at the pupils in the eyes and touch all those places that other subjects s never touch.” In addition, Gabi strives to assist STs in scaffolding their pupils’ learning toward conceptualizing the musical experience. She wants her STs “to attend to the right cognitive processes and to the [pupil’s] ability to conceptualize, to externalize and objectify the singing phenomena.”

Following her purposes, Gabi promotes mentoring processes that stimulate STs’ macro-level conceptual thinking on their own practice. Therefore, she admits to tend “to arrive at conceptualizations with STs on general issues.” To this end, she “stimulate[s] general questions beyond the specific query of acting one way or another.” According to Gabi, the complex character of music education calls for macro-level processes of mediation. In her words, “I look for an issue with multiple solutions to conceptualize . . . because in music education, we don’t have unambiguous answers to specific situations.” To this end, she promotes discussions that “always bounce back and forth between all STs. I find a common theme, a sort of latitude, to lead the conversation.” Leading this discussion, Gabi encourages STs’ reflective and meta-cognitive thinking to challenge their thinking and allow articulation of insights and conclusions.

Behaviorist Theories of Learning Music Informing Mentoring

According to behaviorist theories, learning music necessitates structured teaching methodologies and strict classroom management (Taetle & Cutietta, 2002). Adhering to this end, Gabi aims at equipping STs with teaching strategies, pedagogical tools, and skills, as she mentions: “We have didactic means for planning activities in class and their logical coherence. We work on phrasing the questions so as to stimulate desirable reactions and principles and habits of classroom management.” For example, in one observation, Gabi instructs her mentees to teach “a new rhythm,” through structured steps that gradually present pupils with small segments from the entire rhythmic unit. She demonstrates these steps through “visual, corporal and auditory” perceptual channels, and, eventually, summarizes:

Gabi: If I play, or sing, or tap a musical pattern with a new rhythm unit and at the same time I show the cards and say it out loud in the rhythmic language, the pupils will understand the new materials through elimination and immediately perceive how to say the rhythm, and how it visually differs from the rest.

Echoing behaviorist theories to learning music, Gabi describes mentoring processes for supporting STs’ microteaching practices: “I direct my mentoring by consulting in very specific areas in terms of methods and tactics regarding a particular teaching activity.” First, she consults STs as they plan their lessons to aid them in designing teaching practices and materials, during “one-on-one consultation meeting.” She sees these meetings as her “opportunity to influence . . . demonstrating how to sing, advising on what visual representations to use and so on.” She also consults STs in “real-time,” during their experiences in class, to correct their immediate teaching behaviors. Reflecting about her actions she describes this process: “I often interfere during their lessons . . . instead of losing the original teaching goal and missing the momentum . . . I say a sentence or two to correct their instructions and make it clear.” Gabi’s mentoring following STs’ experiences in class is attuned to their behaviors in class, through re-examining and reviewing their actions. During mentoring sessions, she focuses on demonstrating didactic practices such as how to carry out particular teaching procedures. For instance, she spends over a third of her conversation with her mentee, Ilan, (15 out of 45 min) demonstrating stages of teaching new rhythms.

Discussion

This study investigated an issue largely ignored by research on mentoring and ITE policy: Understanding contextual factors which inform mentors’ work with STs. Our study is the only examination that we know of comparing how ITE mentors from different subject matter domains within the field of arts education construct their roles and practices as informed by contextual factors of their work. Thus, the study offers two main contributions to what we know about ITE mentoring: (a) Mentors’ roles and practices are grounded in contextual factors unique to their subject matter domain, and (b) mentors’ perceptions of the role of their subject matter constitute an integral part of their knowledge base as mentors.

Mentors’ Roles and Practices Are Grounded in Contextual Factors Unique to Their Subject Matter Domain

Studies on ITE mentoring have conceptualized multiple roles that mentors perceive as paramount to their work with STs, and which they enact (Fairbanks et al., 2000; Jones, 2001; Williams & Soares, 2002). Our findings concur with these studies on the roles that mentors adopt in their work with STs: While Sarah emphasizes her role as a facilitator of STs’ thinking (Feiman-Nemser, 2001) and creativity in teaching, Hila stresses her modeling role (Hudson, 2007) in artistic work and creation. Galit foregrounds her role as an advisor of curricular considerations (Timperley, 2001) and evaluator of classroom performance (Tillema, 2009) and Aviva highlights her role in mediating a realistic image of school teaching (Orland-Barak & Yinon, 2007). Finally, Gabi sees herself as stimulator of reflection and cognitive challenge (Rajuan, Beijaard, & Verloop, 2008), evaluator of didactical activities and content knowledge, and a model of microteaching actions (Wilkinson, 1996).

We add to the above by underscoring the place of context in shaping these mentoring roles and practices. Few studies have already recognized the effect of context on mentoring, attending mostly to structural and organizational conditions of ITE programs (Hobson et al., 2008; Lee & Feng, 2007; Wang, 2001). We add to this body of knowledge by suggesting that mentors adopt and enact particular roles according to unique contextual factors, which to their understanding affect their subject matter domains. For example, Hila and Sarah take up roles of providing support (Mcnally & Martin, 1998) to ensure that STs and pupils communicate their artistic creativity and answer to external social needs, through practicing visual arts. Hence, they are affected by these two societal functions of the visual arts as a form of practice in general society. Galit and Aviva adopt mentoring roles of gatekeeping (Rorrison, 2010) for managing the theory–practice gap and the low status of theater teaching. Thus, they construe their role in response to curricular challenges of theater as a subject taught at school. Gabi assumes roles of stimulating reflection (Crasborn, Hennissen, Brouwer, Korthagen, & Bergen, 2008), assessment (Ell & Haigh, 2015), and providing instruction (Franke & Dahlgren, 1996) to implement cognitive and behaviorist models of learning music. This is guided by predominant epistemological theories of music as a discipline in art theory.

In addition, our analysis surfaces tensions and issues of power relations at the base of mentors’ deliberations and practices. Until now, the literature has pointed to tensions and issues of power between professionals and institutional agendas that shape mentoring (Hamel & Jaasko-Fisher, 2011). For example, several studies identify aspects of power within mentoring relationships that enhance or hinder the development of mentors and mentees (Bullough & Draper, 2004). Our findings highlight additional tensions and power relations in mentoring—deriving from political dynamics affecting the subject matter domain. Sarah and Hila consider conflicting values embedded in visual arts practice—of individual creativity versus social compliance and productivity—to guide their mentoring. Aviva and Galit consider power relations between subjects in school curricula and gaps between theory and practice in teacher education to construe their mentoring roles. Gabi draws on competing theories of learning the discipline of music. Thus, our findings expose power issues in mentoring that involve competing ideas and interests regarding the subject domain, operating within social contexts that mentors consider significant to their work.

Mentors’ Perceptions of the Role of Subject Matter: An Integral Part of Mentors’ Knowledge Base

Studies indicate that mentors’ knowledge is grounded mainly in their professional and personal experiences (Clarke et al., 2013). This could explain why mentors in our study consider factors affecting their subject matter domain in contexts to which they feel accountable professionally and personally. For example, Hila turns to her personal experience as a designer, as she rationalizes her mentoring practices. Aviva and Galit mention their experiences as theater school teachers which influence their practices as mentors. Interestingly, our findings suggest that when mentors rely on their personal and professional knowledge in their work, they involve their perceptions of the role of subject matter (art as a form of practice, as a school subject or as a discipline) to inform their practice.

This additional aspect of mentors’ knowledge supports and extends the concept of mentors’ “bi-level knowledge base,” that is, the simultaneous activation of two levels of knowledge—one which is targeted to pupils’ learning and another to novices’ learning (Achinstein & Athanases, 2005). We suggest adding to this bi-focal knowledge base the aspect of the mentor’s ideas about the role of subject matter. Table 3 illustrates how this aspect of knowledge informs mentors’ views of subject matter teaching and mentoring. For each domain, we show contextual factors that influence mentors’ practice; their conceptions of the role of subject matter; their views of subject matter teaching for pupil learning; and their deliberations of mentoring for ST learning. This framework can serve as a platform for examining contextual factors informing mentoring in other subject matter domains.

Table 3.

A Framework for Examining Contextual Factors That Inform Mentors’ Knowledge and Deliberations.

Subject matter domain	Contextual factors affecting mentoring	Perceptions of the role of subject matter	View of subject matter teaching (targeting pupils)	Deliberations of subject matter mentoring (targeting student teachers)
Subject matter domain	Contextual factors affecting mentoring	Perceptions of the role of subject matter	View of subject matter teaching (targeting pupils)	Mentoring purposes	Mentoring processes
Visual arts	The social functions of subject matter	Subject matter as a form of practice in general society	A means for promoting the social functions of subject matter	Supporting the function of visual arts: Communicating individual creativity and emotions of pupils and novices	1. Getting to know each mentee through individual instruction 2. Encouraging mentees to elaborate on their artistic motivations and their application to teaching 3. Directing mentees to examine pupils’ emotional responses to artistic work
Visual arts	The social functions of subject matter	Subject matter as a form of practice in general society		Supporting the function of visual arts: Meeting the educational and aesthetic needs of the school surrounding	1. Organizing collaborative activities for artistic production 2. Synchronizing mentees’ work with school agenda and needs 3. Encouraging discussions on aesthetic standards for artistic production at school
Theater	School curricular considerations of subject matter	Subject matter as a subject taught in school	A practice influenced by the politics of school curricula	Exposing STs to challenges deriving from a theory-practice divide in theater education and equipping them with skills to manage these challenges	1. Promoting mentees’ experiential learning within the classroom 2. Guiding mentees to articulate the pedagogical considerations of their teaching actions 3. Presenting various didactic components of teaching through feedback on mentees’ experiences
Theater	School curricular considerations of subject matter	Subject matter as a subject taught in school	A practice influenced by the politics of school curricula	Exposing student teachers to challenges deriving from the low status of theater in school and equipping them with skills to manage these challenges	1. Sharing positive and negative teaching incidents through open and sincere dialogue with mentees 2. Discussing the need to confront school management on matters of resources and contents 3. Guiding mentees how to raise awareness and support of theater activity within school
Music	Theories of learning the discipline of subject matter	Subject matter as a discipline in art theory	Methods for implementing theories of learning the discipline	Implementing cognitive theories of learning in practice	1. Stimulating mentees’ macro-level conceptual thinking on their own practice through questions and queries 2. Encouraging mentees’ reflective thinking through peer feedback 3. Guiding mentees to reach conclusions and conceptualizations regarding their practice
Music	Theories of learning the discipline of subject matter	Subject matter as a discipline in art theory		Implementing behaviorist theories of learning in practice	1. Consulting mentees on planning and designing lessons and teaching materials 2. Providing “real-time” feedback during mentees’ experiences to correct their behaviors in class 3. Examining the contribution of class activities to lesson goals through a retrospective review of mentees’ chronological actions in class 4. Demonstrating how to conduct teaching procedures during mentoring interactions

Conclusion

The findings suggest that subject matter is “a context that matters” in ITE mentoring. Specifically, the study underscores several contextual factors that have been less attended in the study of teacher learning: the societal functions of practice in a particular domain, the political dynamics of the subject domain in school curricula, and theories of learning the disciplinary domain. It was evident from the study that different interpretations of the role of subject matter are integral to the knowledge base of mentors and to their views and enactments of their mentoring. The role of subject matter, although different across artistic domains, was an essential building block on which participants construed their mentoring.

As mentors think about, enact, and reflect on their mentoring, it is clear that their mediation of teaching is also strongly influenced by factors unique to their subject matter domain. Within this context, mentors find themselves managing tensions related to conflicting values in their subject domain, to power relations between school subjects, or to inconsistent approaches to learning the discipline. Such tensions can, on one hand, yield frustration and create incongruence between different ideas about teaching (such as between encouraging the expression of individual artistic creativity and attending to more pragmatic and collective school needs, in visual arts). On the other hand, however, these tensions can create potential opportunities for more informed mentoring practices (such as in the case of theater, where the low status of theater in schools drove the mentor to engage STs in critical dialogue around school politics and teacher agency). Managing and reflecting on tensions around subject matter as they play out in different social contexts can become a powerful occasion both for student teacher and mentor learning.

Limitations and Open Questions

Before considering the implications that can be drawn from this study for teacher education, important limitations should be acknowledged. First, in regard to generalization, we used data from one country in the field of arts education. Even if Israeli ITE in arts education can serve as an insightful example relevant to mentoring frameworks in other countries, an open question remains: How to generalize findings if other countries and domains of teaching are involved. Conceptually, defining and framing context is problematic, due to its dynamic nature (Gee, 2004). In this study, we identify influencing contexts by concentrating on contextual factors to which mentors ascribe their work. This inductive interpretation of context relies exclusively on participants’ perceptions and actions, giving voice to their perspective. In doing so, though, we might overlook important contextual factors that mentors do not necessarily take into account. Hence, more evidence is needed to develop an inclusive understanding of how context affects mentoring in ITE. Another limitation involves the case study method. Although the data collected are dense and valid, a collective case study of five mentors may be of limited value for understanding the full range of contextual factors affecting ITE mentoring. Consequently, we invite further comparing of insights generated by this study with other case studies and large-scale survey research across subject domains.

Implications for Mentor Preparation and Selection

While every school and country might project a local interpretation of subject matter teaching, some tendencies have been recognized internationally in various domains (e.g., Conway & Sloane, 2005, in mathematics education; and Trudeau & Shephard, 2008, in physical education). In the case of arts education, for example, with the rise of a scientific paradigm in Western culture, we witness a common tendency to devalue the arts in school curricula (Eisner, 1998; McKean, 2001). As evident in our study, such broad processes create contextual factors which are likely to affect teacher mentors worldwide. Therefore, some implications can be drawn from this study for the policy and design of ITE mentoring internationally. Specifically, our study can inform the design of mentor preparation curricula and mentor selection processes.

First, our findings suggest the need to raise mentors’ awareness of the ways in which influential contextual factors in their fields might direct certain approaches to subject teaching and mentoring. Furthermore, mentors should be allowed to explore typical tensions in their subject domains and to develop strategies for managing them through their mentoring practices. This could assist them in conveying more informed pedagogical approaches related to subject matter and to enhance STs’ thinking on their stances toward subject matter and how these affect their practices and identity as teachers. Therefore, we contend that a more comprehensive preparation for mentors should include opportunities to surface tensions and power dynamics that arise from their conceptions of subject matter and which affect their mentoring. Second, in the selection of mentors for a particular ITE program, we recommend paying attention to how mentors’ views of subject matter teaching align with the pedagogical vision of the teacher education program. Adding mentors’ views of subject matter teaching to selection processes, we hope, can assist in creating a more coherent experience of mentored learning in ITE programs.

Supplemental Material

720388 – Supplemental material for Context Matters: Contextual Factors Informing Mentoring in Art Initial Teacher Education

Supplemental material, 720388 for Context Matters: Contextual Factors Informing Mentoring in Art Initial Teacher Education by Ayelet Becher and Lily Orland-Barak in Journal of Teacher Education

Supplemental Material

720388sp – Supplemental material for Context Matters: Contextual Factors Informing Mentoring in Art Initial Teacher Education

Supplemental material, 720388sp for Context Matters: Contextual Factors Informing Mentoring in Art Initial Teacher Education by Ayelet Becher and Lily Orland-Barak in Journal of Teacher Education

Footnotes

Appendix A

Appendix B

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Ayelet Becher is a doctoral student in the Department of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education at the University of Haifa. She specializes in mentoring and professional education. Her main research interests are mentoring and mentored learning and professional education curricula in the context of higher education. Her doctoral work examines how institutional dynamics between university and workplace bodies play out to shape the design and enactment of professional education curricula in teaching and social work.

Lily Orland-Barak is associate professor in education and dean of Graduate Studies of the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research focuses on teacher professional learning, mentoring and curriculum development in the context of preservice and inservice teacher education. She has published numerous articles and books on these topics, and serves on national and international academic committees and editorial boards.

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