Developing a mentoring internship model for school leadership: using legitimate peripheral participation

Abstract

Educational Leadership students need to spend significant time in authentic school contexts working alongside well‐prepared mentor principals to be adequately prepared for complex leadership roles. Through carefully‐designed internships, students link school leadership theory from academic coursework with actual improvisational practice. This type of knowledge can be accessed only in the context of action. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) model of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) describes effective means for bringing intern administrators from the periphery to the center of the community of leadership practice. In LPP mentors create growth‐promoting divisions of labor that allow interns to coparticipate with them completing part of the task while simultaneously observing mentor principals perform theirs, gradually increasing the complexity of tasks that interns are given. LPP is a promising model for guiding selection and preparation of principals for mentoring roles. This paper concludes with four recommendations for creating effective mentored internships.

Notes

* Corresponding author: Ellen J. Williams, Associate Professor, 306R MCKB, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602, USA. Email: [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ellen J. Williams *

* Corresponding author: Ellen J. Williams, Associate Professor, 306R MCKB, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602, USA. Email: [email protected]