Building personal and relational readiness for collaborative teacher mentoring through the intellectual virtues

Purpose Contemporary early career teacher (ECT) mentoring approaches have largely aspired to shift towards a more non-hierarchic and mutually beneficial learning partnership approach. Such mentoring can be challenging to achieve. We report on a project that sought to further understand how intellectual virtues, such as intellectual courage, open-mindedness and humility, may be mobilised to prepare ECTs and mentors for more collaborative mentoring conversations. Design/methodology/approach Using qualitative case study research design, we collected data from 31 mentors and ECTs across two states in Australia engaged in professional learning focused on developing mentors’ and ECTs’ understanding of intellectual virtues as a resource for mentoring conversations. Data were generated from online professional learning activities, a questionnaire and field notes from school site visits and thematically analysed. Findings ECTs and mentors reported an increased self-awareness of their dispositional strengths and limitations and heightened confidence to engage in conversations that were more equal and open. Teachers perceived the deployment of intellectual virtues for mentoring to have personal, relational and learning benefits. Originality/value Numerous mentoring studies have espoused the value of mentoring that takes a co-constructivist and deeply relational approach, yet there is limited guidance provided to teachers as to how such an approach may be achieved. This paper innovatively draws on intellectual virtues as a cognitive construct to explore this issue and makes an empirical contribution to understanding how to prepare mentors and early career teachers for non-hierarchical and relational mentoring conversations.