Is 'Mentoring' the right word? A case study into praxis in the field

Objectives: An investigation into how mentoring is understood by researchers, teachers and school leaders. Theoretical framework: Sensemaking Methods: Case Study considering the conflation of mentoring with coaching, supervision, counselling and induction, employing the theoretical framework of Weick (1995) by mapping and triangulating multiple data sources Data sources: School leaders’ mentoring aims; field notes; interviews (28 mentors & 30 mentees); review of 116 articles from 2005-2014. Results: School leaders and the literature position mentoring in pragmatic, instrumentalist terms. Teacher mentees’ perceived it as performance management. The literature conflated coaching, mentoring, counseling, supervision and induction. Scholarly significance: Positioning mentoring as pragmatic limits its potential. A strong theoretical foundation, conceptually separating mentoring praxis from coaching, supervision and induction is needed