Building Beginning Teacher Resilience: Exploring the Relationship between Mentoring and Contextual Acceptance

ABSTRACT

Beginning teacher resilience has become a topic of international interest, as all school districts are invested in retaining talented teachers. This study builds on extant literature on the role of mentors by examining the influence of mentoring on beginning teachers’ perceptions of acceptance not only in the school but in the larger community through a sociocultural theoretical framework. Through an examination of 14 beginning teachers working in Hillside Public Schools, a district geographically considered rural, but with many indicators of an urban district, the article explores the question: how and to what extent does mentoring build beginning teacher resilience? Data reveal that beginning teachers show signs of developing resilience when they feel accepted by the school community. Mentoring, whether formal or informal, contributes to beginning teachers’ overall feelings of acceptance; such acceptance can help negate beginning teachers’ perceptions of unpreparedness for the demands of teaching in a high-needs school.

KEYWORDS:

• Beginning teacher resilience
• mentoring
• induction
• professional development
• high-needs schools

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the New Jersey Department of Education for its funding of this work through grant number 16E0083. This work was supported by State of New Jersey Department of Education.