Meeting eye to eye: the power relations in triadic mentoring of the degree project in teacher education

Abstract

This study highlights and discusses power aspects within discourses discerned in articulations on triadic mentoring in degree projects in teacher education in Sweden. Each mentoring triad consisted of a pre-service teacher, a professional teacher acting as co-mentor, and a university mentor. As teacher education is to be based on a scientific foundation and proven experience, a symmetrical and complementary approach was to be implemented. Data from interviews, logbooks, and observations of mentoring were analysed discursively using CDA. Two main discourses were distinguished: The hegemony of science, and A gateway to the profession and science: The potential third space. The study shows that the academic paradigm tends to overshadow the symmetrical and complementary approach, but that the third space, the metaphorical meeting outside of the participants’ comfort zone, potentially balances up the mentoring triads through the pre-service teachers’ ownership of the process.