ABSTRACT
Th e focus of Lave and Wenger (1991) is on the learning of apprentices, that is, novices in communities of practices. Many of the subsequent studies in this area have also had this focus. Particularly with respect to teacher education, the emphasis has been on the ST and new teachers. For example, in the literature on how the mentoring experience has affected the two parties concerned, much has been written about its impact on the ST’s identity, whereas little has touched on the formation of the mentor’s identity and their professional learning and development
(Britzman, 1994; Danielewicz, 2001; Johnson, 1992; Johnson, 2003). However, as Lave and Wenger (1991) also point out, as newcomers become full members of a community of practice, this community of practice itself is transformed, resulting in the change of identity of the old-timers. Th is notion of “co-construction” of identities is further elaborated by Wenger (1998) where he argues that members of a community of practice mutually construct their identities through participation in practice. As Hawkey (1997) points out, since mentors and STs both possess their own identities, when they interact to establish a mentoring relationship each will bring “their individual sets of beliefs, orientations, concerns and pressures to their shared enterprise” which “eventually will ensure that the mentoring relationships are extremely complex” (p. 332). While being aware of this complexity, in this chapter, our focus is specifi cally on the mentors’ learning within the community of practice as shaped by the mentoring relationship. We consider three cases of mentors’ learning and how their identities are constructed in relation to their mentoring role.
