Self-Authorship in the Mentoring Process at Pre-School Education

Abstract

There are relatively few scientific sources, which help to reveal the phenomenon of self-authorship in the mentoring process, when a social contact is established between a young, less qualified person and a senior specialist with more professional experience. Thus, this study strives to find the answers to the emerging research questions: what are the preconditions for the emergence of self-authorship in mentoring; what are the interrelationships between these processes. Semi-structured on-line interviews using an interpretative research approach were conducted. The 12 pre-school mentor teachers participated in the research on voluntary basis. After thematic analysis of the interview data, the 2 major themes and 5 sub themes have emerged. Pre-school educators perceive self-authorship as a cognitive journey, i.e. the process of creating their own personal qualities and self as a mentor via helping others, as well as cognition of the young educator’s motivation to work in pedagogy and develop themselves at the same time. Self-authorship manifests an informal assistance to mentees. This support presupposes the need for collegial learning, sharing of experience, that promotes the overall growth of the whole teaching staff. The study findings express the need of a deeper analysis of how self-authorship contributes to the formation of a new role of a teacher-mentor in pre-school education. It is also necessary to explore the propensity of pre-school educators towards collegial learning in a more detailed way. Finally, the study contributes to the understanding of the critical concept of self-authorship in professional contexts.