Learning to Mentor-as-Praxis

The concept of mentoring has undergone a major shift from guide/guided or instructor/protégé arrangements toward more reciprocal, collaborative models. Informed by a robust theoretical framework and real-life examples of successful and ineffective interactions, Learning to Mentor-as-Praxis analyzes in compelling detail how belief systems, ideologies, and values affect the mentoring relationship, why they are critical factors in today’s multicultural landscape, and how they can be used in the training of the next generation of mentors. In this proactive framework, learning to mentor is less a process of acquiring discrete skills and more the gaining of an interrelated set of competencies. At the same time, the book emphasizes the evolution of professional development—pre-service, in-service, and higher education—by focusing on these areas:


Sociocultural and contextual aspects of mentoring

Literature review: acts and agency in mentoring

Appreciation, participation, and improvisation: the key domains of praxis

Building reciprocal interactions in dyads and groups

Using challenges, paradoxes, and impasses

Guidelines for designing and implementing a curriculum in mentor education



A bold reappraisal of current theory and practice and a new conceptualization of mentoring as domains of appreciation, participation and improvisation in praxis, Learning to Mentor-as-Praxis belongs in every academic library and on the shelves of researchers and professionals in mentoring, teacher education, and curriculum development.