Tracing ideas about mentoring newly qualified teachers and the expectations of school leadership in policy documents

ABSTRACT

The practice of mentoring newly qualified teachers (NQT) has gained international attention in research over the past few decades, but little attention has been paid to ideas about mentoring NQT as they are presented in policy documents. Such ideas are important, as they represent what lies behind certain specific policy initiatives and measures. Consequently, this study aimed to provide insight into ideas about mentoring NQT, and to clarify expectations of school leadership regarding such issues conveyed in Norwegian policy documents. Discourse analysis inspired by theories on discursive institutionalism and governance was conducted on five policy papers. The documents were selected from a national educational level in Norway, where the emphasis on mentoring NQT has increased significantly over the past few decades. Three core ideas became visible through analysis: mentoring as a matter of institutionalization, of cultivating career-long collective learning and development, and of boundary work across institutions. Our analysis demonstrates how these ideas are made thinkable and calculable to practitioners and are expected to be used as instruments for practice, as well as how they can be institutionalized into practices of mentoring and, thus, practicable in the Norwegian context. The indicated expectations of school leadership are discussed.

Introduction

Policy documents communicate policy ideas and are fundamental sources for understanding how institutions and organizations constitute reality and how actors act on policy governance and signals (Coffey, 2013). The current study approaches Norwegian policy documents that present policy ideas about mentoring newly qualified teachers (NQT). The purpose of this contribution is to provide insight into ideas about the mentoring of NQT and the expectations of school leadership, and the implications for policy, practice, and research.

To increase the knowledge and skills vital in teaching practices, educational authorities¹ and school leaders organize opportunities for NQT² to integrate and develop into the profession through mentoring (du Plessis et al., 2020; Hobson et al., 2009). In both research and policy, mentoring is considered an essential measure to combat teacher attrition (Hobson et al., 2009; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). Despite a variety of measures directed at NQT, many countries still struggle with high rates of NQT dropout (Aamodt & Næsheim, 2019; Goldhaber & Cowan, 2014; Paniagua & Sánchez-Martí, 2018).

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), on average, early-career teachers represent 16% of the teacher workforce (Paniagua & Sánchez-Martí, 2018). The OECD highlights mentoring as essential to retaining and developing NQT. During the past few decades, the OECD has developed a strong position in setting the agenda for educational policy across countries and in constructing a global policy field of governance (cf. Lingard et al., 2013; Møller, 2017). For example, a study of education policy across Scandinavian countries, of which Norway is one, showed how national developments in these countries are intertwined with OECD policy recommendations (Pettersson et al., 2017). However, despite the growth in homogenization of educational approaches to governance because of global forces, local traditions ensure that they play out differently in national contexts (Lingard et al., 2013).

Norway provides an interesting context for examining policy ideas about the mentoring of NQT and the expectations of leadership regarding this matter. On the one hand, the country reflects global tensions between new public management and hierarchical modes of managing education; on the other hand, its educational sector is characterized by an emphasis on mutual trust between local schools and state levels, as well as between principals and teachers (Gunnulfsen & Møller, 2021). A broad range of initiatives has appeared concerning mentoring NQT over the past few decades, such as the introduction of a new national framework for mentoring NQT in Norway in 2018 (Ministry of Education and Research [MER], 2017c), indicating that mentoring NQT is expected to have a greater focus in the future. In this study, we analyzed the ideas of mentoring expressed through policy texts and the related expectations of school leadership.

The Norwegian approach to mentoring NQT has concentrated the initiative toward the support of the effort of schools and local educational authorities in organizing such activity, as well as the facilitation of collaboration with teacher and mentoring education programs (Rambøll, 2020). This approach has been co-developed by teacher educators, local, regional, and national educational authorities, and unions,³ is not mandatory for school leaders to apply for their school, and is open to local variety in design. Nevertheless, 4 out of 10 new teachers do not receive mentoring, and there is a lot of variation among schools concerning how mentoring is carried out in accordance with the government’s guidelines, which concern the structure, frequency, and plans for mentoring, the competence of the mentor, and the quality of the mentoring effort (Rambøll, 2020).

The Norwegian educational system is a public one run largely by the state, regional, and local municipalities (Møller, 2016), and is often described as being ‘steered at a distance’ (Skinningsrud & Brock-Utne, 2016; quoting Kickert, 1995). This entails the formulation of educational goals at the central level of policymaking and the freedom to choose how to carry them out locally; that is, steering at a distance diverges from using legislation, prohibitions, and regulations in executing policies (Skinningsrud & Brock-Utne, 2016). National policy signals have focused on creating incentives for local school authorities and schools to provide mentoring to NQT, encouraging mentors to acquire mentor education, and establishing networks for mentoring NQT (Smith & Ulvik, 2014). Accordingly, school leaders and mentors have much leeway to interpret and apply policies concerning the mentoring of NQT.

The term ‘mentoring’ is a contested concept, which is applied differently in different settings and for different purposes (Haggard et al., 2011). The debates concern the mentoring relationship, for example, the formality of the relationship, its longevity, or other aspects. Such conceptual complexity challenges the level of precision in political discussions as well as in research (Haggard et al., 2011). Haggard et al.’s (2011) concern was about the generic field of mentoring, but similar challenges have been brought up within the field of education by other researchers, such as Kemmis et al. (2014) and Spooner-Lane (2016). In this contribution, to focus on policy ideas in policy documents about mentoring NQT and the expectations of school leadership regarding this issue, we refer to the definition of mentoring presented in the framework for mentoring NQT (MER, 2017c). In the Norwegian framework, mentoring NQT is conceptualized as ‘a planned, systematic process carried out individually and in groups’, and a mentor is defined as “an educated teacher with formal mentor education, necessary professional competence and a minimum of three years’ experience as a teacher”⁴ (MER, 2017c, p. 6).

In research on mentoring, some attention has been paid to the institutionalization of the mentoring of NQT on an organizational level. Presumably, organizational structures and professional cultures are vital for local mentoring practices (Hobson et al., 2009). Although the literature on mentoring NQT is extensive, there is limited attention to contextual features found to promote effective mentoring (Hobson et al., 2009; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Kutsyuruba, 2020). In this contribution, our focus is not on contextual features that promote effective mentoring but rather on contextual features scarcely addressed in research concerning mentoring NQT – policy ideas about mentoring NQT and related expectations of school leadership, which are anticipated to have implications for the organization of mentoring NQT (Kutsyuruba, 2020; Long et al., 2012).

To conceptualize school leadership,⁵ we apply an analytical perspective inspired by Eacott (2019), who conceptualized school leadership as an ‘organizing activity’. Such an approach emphasizes the interaction of several actors who take part in the activity (Eacott, 2019). ‘Teacher leader’ is a concept describing new functions that have appeared as measures for strengthening schools’ professional development and for relieving school principals from the organization of an increasing workload (Abrahamsen, 2018; Margolis, 2012). The mentor role may be an example of such a practice (Lejonberg et al., 2019).

Inspired by Schmidt (2008), ‘ideas’ refer to the thoughts about and expectations directed toward local practices as expressed in policy documents. In particular, based on the theoretical framework of Theisens et al. (2016), we investigate how thoughts and expectations are made thinkable to practitioners in the way they are communicated in policy documents, as well as how they are made calculable and suggested as instruments for practice, ultimately indicating how they can become institutionalized practices and practicable.

The research questions are as follows:

1. What ideas about the mentoring of NQT can be identified in policy documents? (RQ1)

2. How are these ideas about mentoring NQT made thinkable, calculable, and practicable to actors in the policy documents? (RQ2)

3. What expectations of school leadership related to mentoring NQT are communicated in the policy documents? (RQ3)

The analytic framework of the study draws on theories of new institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008, 2010), governance (Theisens et al., 2016), and school leadership (Eacott, 2019). Given that ideas about mentoring NQT do not exist in a vacuum but may be indicators of changing complex contexts of governance, we apply governance theory to steering dynamics in complex education systems, investigating ideas through Theisens et al’.s (2016) framework and school leadership theory (Eacott, 2018).

The present study contributes to the field by providing insight into ideas concerning mentoring NQT and expectations of school leadership conveyed through policy documents, and by identifying implications for policy, practice, and research.

After the introduction, we present relevant research and data material and methodology. Next, we present the analysis followed by a discussion where we explore the findings. The last section summarizes and concludes the paper.

A review of ideas about mentoring of NQT and expectations of school leadership

With the following review, we set out to identify the need for more insight on policy ideas about the mentoring of NQT and how these ideas are related to school leadership expectations.

Many schools have responded to policy directions by implementing mentoring as a strategy to fight teacher attrition (Spooner-Lane, 2016). Mentorship programs vary greatly in design and are a contested matter (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Kemmis et al., 2014 ; Spooner-Lane, 2017). The different understandings of mentoring are, according to Kemmis et al. (2014), due to the plurality of theories about mentoring. Fletcher and Mullen (2012) supported this perspective, emphasizing that theories about mentoring are complex educational ideas that have increased manifold and are contextually driven. Such conceptual complexity challenges the level of precision concerning the mentoring of NQT and what it is supposed to be. According to a review article by Haggard et al. (2011), researchers should engage more in contextual factors, as they may be relevant for the meaning participants attach to the construct of mentoring. In our analysis of the policy ideas of national educational authorities, we engage in contextual factors of mentoring of NQT in schools.

Many studies on mentoring NQT link this practice to school culture. For example, in an Australian context, Peters and Pearce (2012) found that school culture and the existence of a learning community are of great importance to the well-being and professional development of the NQT. Their findings suggest that school leaders must contribute to the development of school cultures that are supportive of the learning and well-being of staff and students, and they must actively participate in their ‘ongoing induction’ (Peters & Pearce, 2012, p. 260). Hargreaves and Fullan (2000) explained that mentoring in the new millennium should not only be a part of supporting teacher students and NQT but should also be approached as ‘part of an entire system of training, development and improvement’ to create ‘a strong improvement-oriented profession’ (2000, p. 55). Hargreaves and Skelton (2012) showed that the challenges of mentoring are not only about how to connect and integrate systems of support but also about how to embed it in a system of professional collaboration. The arguments promoted by these authors are mirrored in international policy directions concerning the mentoring of NQT. For example, the 2019 OECD report, ‘A Flying Start’, encouraged mentoring to be regarded as an integral part of a ‘coherent system of initial teacher preparation that can serve as the foundation for a process of continued development throughout the full duration of a teacher’s career’ (OECD, 2019, p. 11). The aforementioned studies indicate the importance of leadership but do not specifically address leadership, and the arguments are not linked to organizing the activity of mentoring NQT, failing to capture the interactions between actors in different positions and with different functions and mandates (cf. Eacott, 2019).

Research shows how teacher leadership roles are emerging in schools (Abrahamsen, 2018; Margolis, 2012). The mentor role has been extended in many schools, and mentors are assigned leadership tasks concerning school development through mentoring (Lejonberg et al., 2019). Challenges may concern how new roles can represent issues in the relationship between colleagues (Helstad & Mausethagen, 2019; Lorentzen, 2020). Few studies have provided insight into how policy ideas about the mentoring of NQT and the expectations of school leadership can be understood as drivers of the development of roles and practices in schools.

Presenting clear expectations to leadership about mentoring NQT is essential, according to researchers such as Kutsyuruba (2020), Peters and Pearce (2012), and Frelin and Fransson (2019). These scholars promote the role of the principal in mentoring programs and argue that an increased understanding of school leader’s role identification and role clarity related to mentoring programs and work with NQT are crucial for program success. Their studies could be interpreted as presenting a very optimistic approach to leadership. A more critical approach to the role of principals appears in an evaluations study of Norwegian mentoring education, which showed that school leaders tend not to take advantage of the skills and competencies acquired by mentors with formal mentor education (Smith & Ulvik, 2014). Such findings are supported by Sunde and Ulvik (2014), who showed that school leaders do not perceive mentoring and the skills that mentors acquire through mentoring education as a resource in the organization. Furthermore, school leaders are not engaged in the quality of mentoring, although they facilitate the mentoring of NQT (Sunde & Ulvik, 2014). Thus, these previous studies have called for more knowledge about which expectations are actually directed toward leaders related to the mentoring of NQT.

Few studies have focused on placing mentoring in a broader policy context to illuminate the idea of mentoring in policy documents and the expectations of school leadership related to the mentoring of NQT. An exception is a Swedish study aimed at understanding how principals interpret and enact policy expectations related to teacher registration reform (Frelin & Fransson, 2019). The study showed how principals provided creative translations of policy initiatives concerning the follow-up of NQT by downplaying the assessment aspect, which was the implicit expectation of leadership. However, the study focused on principals’ roles in the enactment of a policy reform but did not address the many actors involved in policy enactment concerning the mentoring of NQT. Although the principals’ interpretations of documents are interesting, more insight into how policy documents present ideas about mentoring NQT has been under-examined.

The current study investigates policy ideas about mentoring NQT and scrutinizes expectations of school leadership related to mentoring NQT communicated in policy documents, as such issues are still largely unknown.

Analytic approach

Our analytic approach is anchored in discourse institutionalism (DI), as presented by Schmidt (2008), and the theory of new public governance presented by Theisens et al. (2016) guides the analysis. We chose a relational approach to school leadership, conceptualizing leadership as an organizing activity in accordance with Eacott (2019).

DI approaches institutional change in a globalized context and the interactive processes of translations and recontextualization in the making and remaking of (educational) institutions. Schmidt (2010) used the term discourse in a generic way, encompassing both the substantive content of ideas and the interactive process in which these ideas are conveyed. DI focuses on how ideas are represented. In this contribution, we do not study the interactive processes as such; instead, we explore ideas about mentoring NQT and how they are communicated. Such ideas can elucidate ‘what is and what to do’ and may be conceptualized as recipes for political action, here denoted as cognitive ideas (Schmidt, 2008, p. 306). Normative ideas, by contrast, indicate ‘what is good or bad about; (something) and what should be done’ (Schmidt, 2008, p. 306). Based on Schmidt (2008), we understand ideas as thoughts about practice communicated to the public (through documents) that hold the potential to influence practice.

We combine DI and the premise that ideas are the drivers of institutional change (Schmidt, 2008) with governance theory (Theisens et al., 2016). As a point of departure, Theisens et al. (2016) posited that modern societies are governed through what they call new public governance (NPG), a way of steering that deals with the complexities of modern societies by allowing for self-organization (Theisens et al., 2016). Plurality is a key concept in NPG, and multiple interconnected actors contribute to maintaining public service systems, such as education. Steering in such a system happens in and through networks and ‘emerges from the activities, tasks and responsibilities of state and non-state actors together’ (Theisens et al., 2016, p. 463). Steering actions must be separated from their consequences, as they are often undeliberate and unintended (Theisens et al., 2016, p. 469). The notions of steering that underlie NPG refer to Foucault’s work on governmentality. Theisens et al. (2016) developed a trilogy of assumed conditions for steering, suggesting that something needs to be ‘thinkable’, ‘calculable’, and ‘practicable’ for steering to occur 2016).

The combination of DI and governance theory (‘the steering trilogy’ in this case) offers an opportunity to analyze how policy ideas in the documents are made accessible for actors in the practice field. Making ideas thinkable refers to the action of translating thoughts into language, which here refers to the language of policy documents. By describing an issue in documents, policymakers enable practitioners to make the world intelligible and amenable to change. One way of doing this is to make the ideas accessible to the reader by conveying thoughts about, for example, formal education for mentors in policy documents such as white papers. Making ideas calculable refers to ‘ … the materialization of thought in particular instruments’, which can act as ‘communication devices between actors’ (Theisens et al., 2016, p. 473). Policymakers actualize this by concretizing approaches to given challenges, such as providing guidelines on how to structure mentoring schemes in schools. Making ideas practicable refers to enabling people’s practices and how they can avail themselves of the instruments provided (Theisens et al., 2016).

Eacott’s (2019) approach to school leadership as an organizing activity creates a grounding for understanding school leadership as including more than the formal role of the principal to emphasize that leadership emerges in relationships and under specific conditions and contexts (Eacott, 2019).

Lastly, the concept of mentoring NQT has been defined in accordance with Norwegian policy directions or ideas, as presented in the introduction. Mentoring NQT is also considered the activity that is anticipated to be organized (cf. Eacott, 2019).

Data material and methodology

Five documents were selected for the study: two white papers, a strategy document about teacher education, principles, and commitments for the mentoring of NQT, which is a basic document and part of a framework for mentoring NQT, and the guidelines for the mentoring of NQT. Table 1 presents the documents.

Table 1. Description of the documents analyzed in the study.

#	Title of Document	Description	Authors
D1	White paper 11 (2009) The role of the Teacher and the Education	White paper about the teacher’s role.	Ministry of Education and Research (MER)
D2	White paper 21 (2017) Desire to learn - Early Intervention and Quality in Schools	White paper about teachers’ and school leaders’ professional development.	MER
D3	The strategy - Teacher Education 2025 – A national strategy for quality and collaboration within teacher educations (2017)	Strategy document about teacher education.	MER
D4	Principles & Commitments – Mentoring of newly qualified teachers (2017)	Basic document, part of a framework for mentoring NQT.	MER
D5	The guidelines for the mentoring of newly qualified teachers – How to enact it in practice? (2018)	Guidelines for mentoring NQT.	The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (NDET)

The documents were purposively selected (Grønmo, 2004) because they present ideas about the mentoring of NQT and how they are proposed to be carried out in a Norwegian context. To identify the documents, we conducted a backward mapping from the basic document in the framework for mentoring NQT, which is Principles & Commitments – Mentoring of Newly Qualified Teachers (Ministry of Education and Research [MER], 2017c). The documents identified frequently refer to each other, and thus intertextuality between the texts was a criterion for selection. The documents were selected from the last two decades because this time frame represents a defining period regarding the development of new policy for the mentoring of NQT. White Paper 11 (D1) (MER, 2009) deviates from the other documents in time frame but was selected because it is commonly referred to as central to the development of the NQT mentoring policy. Other white papers published before 2009 that also addressed the mentoring of NQT were originally included in the material. However, they were excluded, as we prioritized more recent documents. The selected documents are white papers that present more overall ideas and other documents closer to practice (similar to strategy papers and guidelines for practice), which present guidelines and tools for practice. This selection was done to trace the ideas from thinkable to practicable, in accordance with the theoretical approach of Theisens et al. (2016).

We read the documents several times with different analytical aims. The first reading aimed to obtain a holistic overview of the documents and themes to determine which parts of the documents expressed ideas⁶ about mentoring NQT (Schmidt, 2008). The second reading focused on tracing ideas about mentoring NQT to identify the main ideas relevant to the present study. The third reading aimed to understand how these ideas about mentoring were made thinkable, calculable, and practicable (cf. Theisens et al., 2016). The fourth reading focused on identifying the expectations of leadership, for example, by looking for passages in documents that directly addressed issues of how mentoring is supposed to be organized by various actors.

We applied thematic discourse analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2017). The themes were analytically constructed by coding pieces of text in NVivo. Emerging from this process of coding is the identification of ideas and expectations related to them. Quotes were selected from the coded material and used in an illustrative manner to shed light on how policy texts make ideas thinkable, calculable, and practicable. We looked for quotes illustrating how thoughts are put into language to form actors’ perceptions (making ideas thinkable), how they are concretized as materializations of practices (making ideas calculable), and how they are presented as experiences from practice (suggesting ideas as practicable).

We present quotes from a small selection of documents to illustrate policy ideas and how they are communicated, as well as what expectations of school leadership they indicate. Such an approach represents an issue for the credibility of the study. In addition to the strategies mentioned above, measures to enhance the credibility were to test and discuss the findings with other researchers on several occasions (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009).

Findings and analysis

We have structured this section around three main ideas that we identified in the documents regarding RQ1: mentoring of NQT expressed as a matter of 1) institutionalization, 2) career-long professional development and learning, and 3) boundary work across institutions. Within the description of each idea, we illustrate how it is made thinkable, calculable, and practicable to address RQ2, also making explicit any possible expectations of leadership to answer RQ3. The first two questions are summarized in a table, and the third is addressed in more depth in the discussion.

Idea 1: a matter of the institutionalization of mentoring

A recurring idea in the documents is that the mentoring of NQT should be institutionalized to a higher degree than what is currently done. Here, institutionalization can be understood as the process by which policy expectations are enacted in the field of practice.

The analysis of D1 indicates that several measures for institutionalizing mentoring have been initiated. Among these are strengthening the rollout of a program for mentoring NQT: ‘The program is offered all regions, but not all municipalities participate (…)’ (Ministry of Education and Research [MER], 2009, p. 34). Measures have been imposed, but mentoring is not offered in every school. To promote the enactment of mentoring and make the idea thinkable, the authorities refer to statistics. In D1 (MER, 2009), MER calls for action to reduce the high rates of teacher attrition, stating, for example, ‘Projections presented by Statistics Norway show that teacher attrition will be increasing toward 2020, unless measures are imposed’ (MER, 2009, p. 31) author’s translations⁷). This quote expresses how data about teacher attrition are used as an argument to emphasize a problem that may be solved by implementing measures. Furthermore, mentoring is suggested as a measure to secure teacher retention: ‘The study (Frøseth & Caspersen, 2008)⁸ clearly shows the need for systematic mentoring and follow-up in the first years of professional life’ (MER, 2009, p. 92). In multiple documents, MER presents a Norwegian-commissioned study to emphasize that mentoring must be systematic, which calls for action. Such reference to research, as well as to evaluations and earlier experiences, appears as a way for national authorities to legitimize their arguments and make them thinkable; this appears not only in D1, but also in D2 and D3.

To promote institutionalization, MER increased its funding of mentoring: ‘In 2009, the funding of the program “mentoring of NQT” is doubled (…) to be able to offer all NQT in primary and secondary schools mentoring in the school year 2010–2011’ (MER, 2009, p. 34). Economic support contributes to making the idea of better institutionalization calculable.

Despite the efforts proposed in D1, MER (MER, 2009) still addresses issues concerning the extension and practice of the mentoring of NQT in the strategy document (D3), which was published eight years later: ‘The evaluation⁹ shows that four of ten newly educated teachers are not offered mentoring … there is much variability concerning the extent and quality in the measures offered’ (MER, 2017b, p. 22). Consequently, there are still challenges with the amount and quality of mentoring going on in schools. Thus, it seems necessary for the authorities to make ideas on how to systematize mentoring calculable for the public, thereby strengthening its institutionalization. Moreover, in D2 (MER, 2017a) and in the strategy document (D3), a new framework for mentoring NQT is suggested (example from D3): ‘ … the government in collaboration with partners intend to create a national framework for mentoring of NQT, embracing all newly employed (teachers), allowing space for local adjustments’ (MER, 2017b, p. 22). This framework can be understood as an attempt to bring ideas closer to practice by making them calculable – that is, guiding the local practices of practitioners through guidelines.

By referring to experiences, educational authorities illustrate how ideas can be relevant for practice. For example, a leader in a kindergarten is referred to in the following way (D5): ‘Mentoring must be organized on a regular basis and prioritized – in a busy week it is easily forgotten about’ (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training [NDET], 2018, p. 8). The experienced practitioner concretizes how mentoring can be institutionalized in a given context, making the idea of institutionalization practicable. The guidelines utilize voices from practitioners to legitimize the practicability of the document, showing its usefulness for practice.

The idea of the institutionalization of the mentoring of NQT is also supported by referring to a selection of international and Norwegian peer-reviewed studies, UNESCO, and OECD publications for policy makers and commissioned evaluation reports, statistics, legislation, and earlier experiences, making the idea thinkable, calculable, and possible to imagine as practicable. There is a greater focus on research and statistics in the white papers and more on legislation and practitioners’ voices in D3–D5, which are documents closer to practice.

Several expectations of school leadership become visible in the policy documents (D3 and D5) concerning better institutionalization (example from D3): ‘The newly qualified should anticipate that the employer provides a system supporting them in the transition between education and profession, also contributing to the inclusion in the professional community’ (MER, 2017b, p. 22). Furthermore, in the guidelines (D5), the national educational authority makes explicit that local and regional educational authorities are responsible for the provision of mentoring and professional learning. The document stipulates that school leaders and other actors will be held accountable for realizing the intentions of the guidelines, which are intended to be an instrument to design structures to facilitate mentoring in their own schools as an institutionalized practice. D5 (NDET, 2018, p. 5, 6) lists the expectations of teacher educators, educational authorities in the municipalities, principals, and mentors. The local educational authority is expected to map the need for mentoring and mentoring competence and to develop criteria for whom should be included and defined as NQT. Teacher educators are expected to offer mentoring education, and mentors are expected to follow up on local plans for mentoring. All these actors have designated roles in contributing to the realization of national guidelines. The extent to which ideas become practicable – that is, enacted in practice – is an empirical question and has implications for the organization of mentoring of NQT and, thus, leadership.

Idea 2: a matter of career-long collective professional development and learning

A second idea is that mentoring is a matter of career-long collective professional development and learning. Here, attention is devoted to how mentoring NQT is presented as being linked to the school as a professional community, to the education of teachers, and to school leadership. This argument is illustrated by the following citation from D1:

The teacher role has also expanded from mainly working with pupils to more responsibility for the school’s overall mandate. The teacher is expected to be an actor in the professional community and to contribute to the development of targeted plans. This demands collaboration between leaders and teachers, and between teachers themselves, more than has been the case. (MER, 2009, p. 41)

This idea about the teacher’s role and professional communities is made thinkable in D1 by referring to Danish practice¹⁰ and presenting expectations toward practice, that is, the teacher is expected to continuously develop, and mentoring is suggested to be part of the development. D1 presents how mentoring is connected to such developmental processes at the system level:

Skillful teachers develop both professionally and personally throughout their professional lives. Hence, it is necessary with a well-functioning system to recruit, educate, mentor, keep, and develop excellent teachers. This is under recommendations from both the EU and the OECD, emphasizing that teacher education must be considered a continuous process. (MER, 2009, p. 31)

The idea is captured and made thinkable by suggesting that schools must offer opportunities for teacher development and that mentoring must be a part of such a system. Further, referring to transnational organizations such as the EU and OECD, which promote that teacher education as an ongoing process through a teacher’s career, can make the idea more thinkable. The idea is suggested to be practicable by inviting the voice of a local advisor:

In Akershus, a Norwegian county, we consider the newly qualified teacher to be a resource in the professional community. To us, this involves applying the tools and methodology that they bring … (TDET, 2018, p. 3)

The quote indicates that it is practicable to use NQT as a resource in the professional community because they have skills that are valuable to the school. The guidelines (D5) illustrate how such an approach may be practiced. The suggestion that NQT are resources may also be interpreted as a way of making the second idea calculable. Embracing NQT as a resource may be a way of securing continuous collective professional development and learning. In the strategy document (D3), MER also suggests mentoring as a tool in the same process: ‘The competency that the mentor acquires through mentoring education is important for the development of the school organization and the profession in general’ (2017, p. 22). Such a notion is legitimized by referencing commissioned reports of evaluated mentoring initiatives (e.g. Rambøll, 2016) and makes thinkable the idea of how the mentoring competency may facilitate the general processes of professional development within the school to support NQT in their development. This quote may also be interpreted as a way of making the second idea calculable because the competency of the mentor in this case is promoted as a potential means to drive collective professional development and learning.

The close connection between mentoring NQT and the professional development of experienced teachers is underscored by introducing a framework for mentoring education. In the strategy document (D3), the expectations for 2025 are presented: ‘The teacher educators offer mentoring education toward different purposes of mentoring in schools … ’ (MER, 2017b, p. 22). A mentoring education program adapted to several needs of mentoring, including both mentoring NQT and the peer mentoring of colleagues, is suggested to promote professional and organizational development and can make Idea 2 calculable. An example from a school municipality is suggested in White Paper 11 (D1) to exemplify how such a developmental approach may be practiced:

Mentoring in Skien municipality: The municipality introduced mentoring of newly qualified teachers as compulsory in 2005 [… .] The school municipality has a life phase-oriented personnel policy, with measures directed toward newly qualified as well as senior employees. The school municipality has a system for continuous professional development. They offer a compulsory program for mentoring newly qualified [….] they develop a coordinated plan for professional development and facilitate arenas for exchange and learning. (MER, 2009, p. 93)

This quote shows how the mentoring of NQT may ideally be included in a system of continuous professional and collective development and learning embracing NQT and senior employees. In this example, the school municipality has implemented a compulsory program for mentoring NQT. The municipality took the directions from the authorities further than instructed, but D1 used the program as an ideal example of how mentoring NQT is an approach that can be successfully included in a plan for lifelong professional development.

Expectations toward school leadership concerning collaboration within and development of the professional collegium are relevant for the expectations toward the leadership of mentoring NQT. In White Paper 21 (D2), this comes through as follows:

One of the most important tasks for school leaders is nurturing collaboration within the organization. This includes being engaged in the professional work/practice that teachers carry out in the classroom, making space for trial and error within the organization, and through this creating room for […] development. (MER, 2017a, p. 35)

The authorities encourage school leaders to engage in classroom practice and facilitate a learning environment that ideally provides room for development. This requires collegial collaboration and developing the professional community, which is the responsibility of school leadership. School leaders are supposed to engage in professional work to provide for professional development. The engaged and active school leader is argued for and made thinkable by referring to findings from a commissioned evaluation report (Postholm et al., 2013) of a Norwegian school development initiative, and a commissioned research report (Mourshed et al., 2010) from an English context (MER, 2017a, p. 35). In D2, the term ‘school leader’ is applied as a general term to include both the principal or leadership team led by the principal (MER, 2017a, p. 35). It is clearly specified that the responsibility belongs to the principal; however the description of a leadership team indicates that the workload must be shared.

In the guidelines (D5), the responsibility of the school principal is explicitly expressed and includes recognizing the NQT as a resource, acknowledging what the mentoring job involves, recruiting suitable mentors, and motivating candidates to acquire formal mentoring education (NDET, 2018, p. 6). These tasks imply that principals are encouraged to activate the available resources (NQT and mentors) to facilitate professional development. Mentors are also given specific directions.

Furthermore, D4 made it explicit that the responsibility for professional development for both experienced teachers and NQT is anchored in the Education Act§ 10–8 and the Working Environment Act§ 4–2 (MER, 2017c, p. 2). Those responsible are local educational authorities and school leadership. This comes through in D5, in which the local educational authorities are encouraged to ‘- coordinate formal education of mentors with other regional initiatives directed at competence development … ’ (NDET, 2018, p. 5). This illustrates that the local educational authorities are expected to take an active part in the planning of professional development for schools and that mentoring should be considered part of it. For school leadership, this means that their effort toward continuous professional development is closely connected to the efforts of local school authorities, and D5 [the guidelines] is a way of making calculable how these efforts may be coordinated and practiced. How to organize the mentoring of NQT in accordance with this idea at the school level requires organizational skills and knowledge about the policy directions concerning the content and expected organization of mentoring NQT. According to D2 such skills are desirable and possible to achieve through formal leadership education (cf. MER, 2017a, p. 35).

Idea 3: a matter of improved boundary work across sectors

A third idea is that teacher education, schools, municipalities, and other institutions are expected to collaborate across institutional boundaries to strengthen the connections between teacher education and practice to increase ‘ … mutual institutional learning’ (MER, 2009, p. 68). Here, we direct our attention to how mentoring NQT is linked to boundary work and that a closer collaboration between teacher education institutions and schools and school authorities is expected to improve the teaching profession.

One goal of boundary work is suggested to decrease the gap between theory and practice by increasing the exchange and learning between teacher education and the field of practice. The idea of suggesting mentoring NQT in such boundary work is not a new thought but is yet to be sufficiently achieved. D1 makes the idea thinkable by pinpointing a lack of collaboration as a challenge:

Several of the critical issues in NOKUT’s evaluation concern interaction and division of responsibilities between teacher education and field of practice … . Furthermore, the transition between teacher education and the profession is a focus [in the evaluation], and this situation is the background for the Mentoring NQT project. The evaluations of this project show the significance of collaboration concerning the support offered to NQT in the transition from education to the profession. (MER, 2009, p. 68)

The transition between education and practice must be improved through the mentoring of NQT. The document makes the idea of boundary work thinkable by showing how the lack of boundary work results in poor evaluations, as indicated by NOKUT,¹¹ an agency for quality in education. The quote shows the expectation that collaboration between institutions is key for mentoring and support offered by NQT, and the argument is supported by an evaluation report (Dahl et al., 2006).¹²

In D4 (MER, 2017c), the partners have agreed upon ‘how the partners should contribute to the mentoring and how they must embed it in their own organization, to take care of the enactment of their own responsibilities and secure a dialogue between partners … ’ (MER, 2017c, p. 5). As such, these agreements present ways to make the boundary work calculable. Dialogue between partners is emphasized as an important aspect of collaboration to ensure that the work with mentoring is embedded and sustained in the partner’s own organization.

Subsequently, in the guidelines (D5) (NDET, 2018), the collaborative aspect is directed at specific actors: ‘Good mentoring arrangements are embedded at all levels, including school municipality, [… .] and principal level. A close and committed collaboration with the […] teacher education is also important’ (NDET, 2018, p. 4). The collaboration between the school sector and regional teacher education concerns the fact that teacher educations are not only educating new teachers, but they also develops the new mentoring education (presented in Idea 2). This indicates that the actors must collaborate to strengthen both teacher and mentoring education. Mentoring education is expected to be in accordance with both the needs of teacher education and the field of practice (NDET, 2018). Boundary work is presented as a need of both institutions without problematizing the challenges that may arise. By designing a new framework for the education of mentors and guidelines for mentoring NQT, the directorate is addressing specific actors to act. The educational authority has provided the means to make boundary work calculable.

The distribution of responsibilities and tasks is made explicit in D5, and several are relevant to improving boundary work. For example, actors at the municipality level are expected to ‘facilitate systematic collaboration with the teacher education about the organization of mentoring and how it should be carried out … ’ (NDET, 2018, p. 5). The teacher education institutions are also supposed to ‘ … establish close contact with the field of practice, to ensure that the transfer between teacher education and practice is as good as possible’ and further to ‘establish arenas for collaboration across teacher education, schools and school authorities … ’ (NDET, 2018, p. 5). Explicit responsibility for boundary work across sectors concerning mentoring NQT (D5) is mainly directed toward local educational authorities and teacher education institutions, but as some of the expectations imply, a close collaboration with the field of practice is anticipated. This has implications for school leaders at the local level that are not specifically addressed in the documents.

Summarizing the findings

Table 2 summarizes the ideas about mentoring NQT that can be identified in policy documents (RQ1) and how these are made thinkable, calculable, and practicable to actors at the local level (RQ2).

Table 2. The three ideas and how they are made thinkable, calculable, and practicable.

How ideas are made	Idea 1: mentoring as a matter of institutionalization	Idea 2: mentoring as a matter of career-long collective professional development and learning	Idea 3: mentoring as a matter of improved boundary work across sectors
Thinkable	By presenting national and international research about NQT as a large group of the teacher workforce and to what degree they need mentoring.	By referring to transnational organizations describing the idea of continuous collective professional development and how mentoring is connected to this.	By presenting research pinpointing a lack of collaboration between teacher education and the field of practice.
Calculable	By presenting guidelines for mentoring NQT.	By presenting NQT and mentors as resources “for enhancing continuous collective professional development” and requesting a framework focusing on the need of professional development.	By establishing agreements and principles committing actors from different institutions to enact collaboration and by pointing out actors responsible.
Practicable	By presenting practitioner voices describing the systematizing of mentoring in their local context.	By presenting examples from practice in municipalities describing mentoring as a part of career-long learning.	By presenting examples from practice illustrating benefits of collaboration.

The findings suggest school leaders are expected (RQ3) to recognize the importance of mentoring NQT and NQT as a resource. Moreover, they are expected to acknowledge and utilize the competences of the trained mentor, evaluate and adjust the mentoring of NQT, and collaborate with higher education institutions. The expectations are directed at the principal but with some indication that the leadership teams should be involved in organizing the activity (cf. Eacott, 2019). Expectations of leadership are not explicit concerning Idea 3.

Discussion

The discussion section is organized into three subsections related to the three ideas, which are identified in the documents and categorized into the following headings: Ideas in Documents as Acts of Steering, Mentors and NQT in Professional Development – What are the Conditions for Organizing Such Practices?, and Mentoring NQT as Boundary Work – Steering through Interaction. The discussion is grounded in the findings of the first two research questions, previous research, and the analytic framework of the study. In this section, we also discuss the findings of RQ3 regarding how the expectations of school leadership regarding the mentoring of NQT are communicated in the policy documents.

Ideas in documents as acts of steering

In contrast to many countries (for example, Sweden and Australia; Kemmis et al., 2014), Norway does not seem to prefer mandatory arrangements for the mentoring of NQT as a strategy of the national educational authority. This matter must be considered in a historical context in which local educational authorities in Norway have been accorded a high degree of trust and autonomy to local judgments and adaptations. However, with such an approach, a need for evaluation has emerged. An example of this is found in the Principles & Commitments – Mentoring of Newly Qualified Teachers (D4) (MER, 2017c), which requests evaluations of the national framework for the mentoring of NQT. In turn, evaluations may be used as arguments for new initiatives. As shown in our analysis, the national educational authority found local attempts to mentor NQT to be insufficient. Thus, they have initiated new measures, such as the national framework for mentoring NQT and a framework to unify mentoring education across the country. This situation exemplifies what Kickert (1995) conceptualized as ‘steering at a distance’. In the present study, steering at a distance is manifested as thoughts and tools intended to improve and systematize the practice of mentoring NQT. Such deliberate acts of steering occurring in policy documents must, according to Theisens et al. (2016), be distinguished from their consequences, as the consequences are a result of interaction between many actors, and may end up elsewhere than what was the original intention. Ideas about mentoring NQT are presented in the documents, such as the definition of mentoring provided in D4, which denotes mentoring ‘as a structured and a planned, systematic process carried out individually and in groups’. Such a definition does not refer to quality aspects of mentoring, and may be criticized for leaving essential aspects characterizing the mentoring practice unaddressed. As Haggard et al. (2011) pointed out, a definition does not necessarily reduce variability in how mentoring is practiced; however, a definition should contain certain attributes to distinguish mentoring from other types of workplace interactions, which the definition provided in the documents does not necessarily capture. The local authorities and school leaders are left to decide on how to conceptualize and organize the activity of mentoring NQT (cf. Eacott, 2019).

The documents in the analysis refer to research and transnational organizations as a way of making the school leader’s responsibility in securing a structure for mentoring NQT thinkable. Such research provides ideal examples of how a professional community should be run to facilitate learning, with mentoring as an integrated part, and this has put pressure on school leaders to organize sustainable support systems. Møller (2017) noted that the expectations of leadership in school policy in general express a very optimistic perspective on school leadership in accordance with OECD recommendations. However, leadership involvement is not a warrant for the quality of mentoring, as shown in Sunde and Ulvik’s (2014) study, presented in the review section. As illustrated in the analysis, much of the research referred to in the documents is commissioned reports and publications from the OECD, which may be characterized as normative, with the intention of promoting a certain developmental approach that reflects global policy trends.

The institutionalization of mentoring is, in the documents, presented as crucial for the practice and professional development of the NQT. However, issues of responsibility are only briefly touched upon, and although the enactment of the new framework of mentoring NQT is anticipated to be evaluated, such a measure is not a strong way to make school leaders accountable, particularly as long as the requirement to offer mentoring is loosely defined and not legislative. Steering at a distance may foster engagement, creativity, and empowerment in local schools. The challenge is the continuous development of a multitude of policy ideas regarding how to develop the school organization which may cause a variety of translations of these policies. This implicates many different practices. Different practices are not necessarily bad, but they may not serve the intentions of the authorities.

Mentors and NQT in professional development – what are the conditions for the organization of such practices?

Our analysis illustrated a shift in perceptions of NQT’s role, which is conveyed in the selected documents. In addition to safeguarding that all NQT are included in mentor programs, NQT are expected to be considered resources in the professional learning communities in schools. Appointed mentors are also acknowledged as crucial actors in the processes of school development. The same argument has been found in OECD publications (e.g. OECD, 2019; Paniagua & Sánchez-Martí, 2018). This matter raises questions about school culture, which may vary extensively (D. H. Hargreaves, 1995), as with the status of newcomers. This suggests that in some schools, upgrading the status of NQT would be welcomed (Lejonberg & Jacobsen, 2022), whereas other schools are presumably not ready for such upgrade (Smith & Ulvik, 2014). Equivalently, in some schools, the appointed mentors are considered resources with adequate competencies, and such, they are responsible for the processes of school development, whereas elsewhere, mentors are merely mandated with tasks directly concerning the support of NQT or teacher students without having any wider responsibility for organizational development (Lejonberg et al., 2019). This issue illustrates what has been shown in recent research about the challenges encountered by teacher-leaders with the formal competencies to lead professional development but who are not mandated with such responsibility (Lorentzen, 2020). New teacher leadership roles, similar to those of mentors, are established in several schools both in Norway and internationally (Lejonberg et al., 2019; Lorentzen, 2020); hence, the competent mentor should be expected to be an integrated part of a support system for professional development (Hargreaves & Skelton, 2012). However, these roles are not always easily implemented, and challenges with legitimacy can arise when teacher-leaders encounter some of their colleagues as mentors or ‘experts’ (Lorentzen, 2020; Margolis, 2012).

The question remains as to whether the conditions for organizing mentors as responsible for organizational development are present. The authorities aim at establishing the school as a ‘learning organization’, but such holistic approaches to professional development in professional communities are time- and resource-consuming, and may well meet resistance by the practitioners. For policy ideas to become practicable, as anticipated by the authorities, there must be an alignment between how they are made thinkable and calculable and how they are played out in practice and become practicable (Theisens et al., 2016). Practitioners, such as school leaders, are central actors in this process, and they may ask whether the effort to comply with such policy demands is worthwhile. Although expectations of leadership in the documents are explicit, they provide leeway for local practices and solutions. Chosen solutions will depend upon local conditions and practitioner’s perceptions.

Mentoring NQT as boundary work – steering through interaction

The idea of mentoring as boundary work across institutions touches on concerns about the gap between theory and practice, which has been addressed in the literature on mentoring NQT (e.g. Hobson et al., 2009; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). Collaboration on mentoring NQT between teacher educators and the field of practice is suggested to bridge this gap. In our analysis, we find that such boundary work is conveyed as achieved by establishing committing agreements between partners.

In boundary work, there could be the potential to develop learning across teacher education and the practice of mentoring, which seems to be one motivation behind the idea, as mentoring NQT in D1 is anticipated to foster mutual institutional learning (see Findings and Analysis). However, conceptualizing common goals among institutions concerning the mentoring of NQT may be a challenge (Jahreie & Ottesen, 2010), not least because the purposes of boundary work might be ill-defined, especially in new collaborations (Jensen, 2020; Jensen & Lund, 2014). The institutional goals of schools are different from the goals of teacher education institutions, and institutions may struggle to agree on common goals. For instance, if the education of mentors is one measure to bridge the gap between teacher educators and schools, it is not difficult to imagine that there may be conflicts of interest between institutions about this. In the documents, the expectation for partners to overcome such challenges is that they must cultivate a ‘systematic and committing’ (cf. D5) dialogue and collaboration. The expectations of school leaders to embark upon such collaborative practice are rather vague in the documents, with little specifics as to what organizing activities are involved.

Steering emerges in interactions with actors in different relations to each other (Theisens et al., 2016), implying that constellations between actors influence how ideas are interpreted and enacted by school leaders (and other actors). How local school authorities, as well as school leaders and other school practitioners, take part in different constellations and networks could, therefore, influence the extent to which the school collaborates in boundary work concerning the mentoring of NQT. The question remains as to whether tools such as agreements and encouraged dialogue with partners are strong enough incentives to achieve the intentions of the authorities.

Concluding remarks

The purpose of the current study was to contribute insight into ideas about the mentoring of NQT, the expectations of school leadership, and the implications for policy, research, and practice as captured from policy documents addressing mentoring of NQT. The findings suggest three core ideas about mentoring NQT: a matter of the institutionalization of mentoring NQT, a matter of career-long collective professional development and learning, and a matter of improved boundary work across sectors. The ideas we have identified can be understood in light of transnational trends connecting mentoring NQT to continuous collective professional development and learning, which is ultimately anticipated to support student learning. The analysis exemplified how ideas are made thinkable, calculable, and practicable. This approach allowed us to illuminate policy ideas as acts of steering.

There are some limitations to the study. First, the sources of data are from a Norwegian context. Second, only five key policy documents are used as the empirical grounding, which challenges the opportunity to generalize the findings. However, the findings can be subject to analytic generalizations in which ‘the conclusions of [a qualitative study] are seen to be generalizable in the context of a particular debate rather than being primarily concerned to a larger collectivity’ (Eisenhart, 2009, p. 59). We presume that the findings are relevant for an international audience, since similar ideas concerning the mentoring of NQT are intertwined with policy, research, and practice worldwide. The analysis of the selected policy documents represents an illuminative journey from policy ideas to intended practice.

There are several implications of the study for practice, policy, and research. An implication for practice is the need to transfer the ideas of mentoring NQT into practice. Insights into policy ideas of mentoring NQT can help to better understand policy initiatives into a deeper and broader context when trying to enact the policy initiatives. Since the expectations to school leadership are vague, discussions about the implications for school leadership are crucial. Furthermore, policymakers should carefully assess the various translations of policy ideas and the importance of school leadership in such translations. We argue that the presentation of ideas in policy documents is a way of steering that may create tensions when these ideas are translated into practice, as the conditions in practice vary extensively. The policy ideas we have identified are often argued for by referring to evaluations and commissioned reports. These evaluations and reports may not problematize the varying conditions and how to cope with them. Such varying conditions are imperative for policy makers to contemplate. Another implication of the study for policy is the need to pay more attention to the conceptualization and clarification of the term ‘mentoring’. Further development of the definition of the term in policy could benefit from being anchored in research. Regarding research, our findings urge scholars to scrutinize the many policy documents addressing mentoring NQT as sources of ideas that may influence practice.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank colleagues in the research group, Curriculum Studies, Leadership, and Educational Governance (CLEG), for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. A particular thank you to Professor Jorunn Møller for valuable help with finishing the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hilde Madsø Jacobsen

Hilde Madsø Jacobsen is a PhD Candidate at the University of Oslo, Department of Teacher Education and School Research. Jacobsen's main research interests are educational leadership and policy and mentoring of newly qualified teachers.

Ruth Jensen

Ruth Jensen is a Professor (PhD) at University of Oslo, Department of Teacher Education and School Research. Jensen’s main research interests are within educational leadership, professional learning, qualitative methodology, curriculum studies and school development.

Eli Lejonberg

Eli Lejonberg is Associate Professor (PhD) at the University of Oslo, Department of Teacher Education and School Research. Lejonberg’s main research interests are mentoring, teacher education og teachers professional development.

Notes

1. The term refers to both the national, regional/district, and local municipal authorities.

2. Various concepts are used to describe new teachers, such as ‘novice teachers’, ‘early career teachers’, and ‘beginning teachers’. We use the same concept as in the source to mediate the content. However, NQT is the main term utilized in the present article.

3. Actors called ‘the partners’ are the Ministry of Education and Research, KS – the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities, teachers’ and school leader’s unions, student unions, and the higher education organ (UHR). The partners are addressed in several of the analyzed documents.

4. Author’s translation.

5. We use terms such as school leadership, school leaders, principals and teacher leaders when we address leadership in the article.

6. Understood as thoughts about and expectations toward practice (Schmidt, 2008).

7. All quotes from the policy documents are translated by the authors.

8. A commissioned report concerning newly qualified professionals encounters with professional life.

9. An evaluation of the program mentoring NQT and the mentoring education (Rambøll, 2016)

10. Cf. Report from a meeting with Copenhagen Municipality (D1, p. 42).

11. NOKUT – the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education.

12. A commissioned evaluation report of the national initiative of mentoring NQT.