Mentoring for Inclusive Reform: Understanding the Identities and Agency of Special Education Induction Mentors

Abstract

Inclusion has been a major component of educational reform for nearly four decades. However, educational systems continue to struggle with implementing and sustaining practices that create equitable and inclusive educational experiences for all students. Induction mentoring may play a critical role in supporting beginning teachers with developing the necessary skills and ideologies to transform educational discourse and practices that devalue and segregate students with marginalized identities. Mentoring is considered a powerful tool for educational reform; however, little is known about the identities and agency of mentors. This study uses the theory of social identity development and figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998), and a disability studies in education framework to explore the constructed identity and agency of mentors of beginning special education teachers. Specifically, a multiple case study design was employed to understand (a) how mentors’ lived histories influence how they interpret and enact their identities, (b) their conceptualizations of inclusion, and (c) their perceived agency in advancing their conception of inclusion. Data collection methods included in-depth phenomenological interviewing, identity mapping, concept mapping, and artifact analysis. Exploring the ways that mentors construct and practice their identity and perceive their agency contributes to understanding how mentoring can be used to support beginning special education teachers in either adopting or resisting traditional approaches to special education and inclusion. The results of the study suggest that mentors relied predominately on their lived histories to inform their practices and interpretation of their identity which varied across participants. Their conceptualizations of inclusion surfaced tensions between an idealized vision of inclusion and the dominant approaches to inclusion in their situated contexts, highlighting the influence of context on constructed knowledge and ideologies. These tensions, among several other aspects of their contexts and identities, contributed to mentors’ perception of their agency, which was often constrained to the boundaries of traditional approaches to inclusion and special education in their contexts. Implications for induction and mentoring programs and future directions for research are also discussed.