Gender, rurality and mentoring relationships in teaching practice contexts in Zimbabwean secondary schools.

Abstract

Mentoring relationships during teaching practice are a key medium in which student teachers develop effective professional learning and practice through guidance, supervision, critique and feedback from mentor teachers. While colleges and universities in Zimbabwe have been placing student teachers in a variety of geographic and cultural contexts, in recent years, there has been a decrease in the number of student teachers opting for teaching practice in rural areas. This mirrors the trend of qualified teachers shunning rural teaching placement. This is despite the government’s policy that upon qualification, student teachers have to serve in rural areas before they can permanently work in urban areas. The reasons for student teachers’ reluctance to be placed in rural schools include, among others, distance between the schools and urban centres, poor infrastructure, quality of mentoring and the choice of mentor in the schools. It is against this backdrop that the research examines the nature of mentoring relationships between student teachers and mentor teachers in rural schools, and how gender and rurality influence them. The study was conducted with 32 participants (18 student teachers who were on teaching practice and their 14 mentor teachers) in selected rural schools located in the Mashonaland East, West and Central provinces in Zimbabwe. The study was informed by two theoretical lenses, the ethic of care theory (Gilligan, 1982; Tronto, 1993) to explore the influence of gender on mentoring relationships and the generative theory of rurality (Balfour, Mitchell & Moletsane, 2008) to analyse the influence of rurality on relationships. The study was located within an interpretive paradigm, which suggests that human life experiences can be understood from the subjective construction of the meaning of the individuals involved and how they relate within their social contexts. Informed by this paradigm, the study adopted a qualitative approach, using such methods as focus group discussions, semi-structured and photo-elicitation interviews with student teachers and their mentor teachers to generate data. The findings suggest that three types of mentoring relationships existed in the rural secondary schools: cordial, dysfunctional and paradoxical caused by a combination of factors. Cordial relationships produced productive and mutual learning for the mentoring parties, whilst dysfunctional relationships were problematic and inhibited mutual learning, and paradoxical relationships were both productive and unproductive at different times. Whilst individual, school culture and socio-cultural factors accounted for these relationships, gender and rurality played a significant role in the formation and manifestation of these relationships. Same-gender relationships accounted for the majority of the cordial relationships whilst cross-gender mentoring partnerships were linked to dysfunctional and paradoxical relationships. The findings suggest that same-gender relationships opened more opportunities of interaction during and after working hours within and outside school premises, while cross-gender relationships were more restrictive. However, some trendsetters in cross-gender relationships had cordial relationships, but these were dependent upon caring attributes between the mentoring parties. Surprisingly, rurality, through its unique characteristics promoted agency and learning in the mentoring process and relationships. Due to communal lifestyles in rural communities, more opportunities for interaction and mutual understanding were available. The shortage of resources stimulated agency and innovation that saw the construction and accumulation of teaching and learning resources where there had been paucity. Both mentor teachers and student teachers reported a mindset shift regarding the benefits of rural placements in mentoring and professional nourishment. The findings suggest that student teachers should be exposed to a rural component of teaching practice during their training. In tandem, interventions that seek to develop skills and attributes that make mentoring relationships effective must be developed for student teachers in their teacher education curricula, and for school-based teachers through professional development programming.