Enriching the professional identity of early childhood development teachers through mentorship

The purpose of this paper is to highlight three professional identity tensions that are experienced by beginning teachers: the change in role from student to teacher; conflicts between expectations and realities of mentor support given to students (mentees), and contradictory notions of learning to teach. Research shows that Early Childhood Development (ECD) is losing many highly qualified teachers due to the perceived lack of proper mentorship in developing professional identity. This article outlines a study to explore the mentoring needs of ECD teachers in developing a positive professional identity. Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) as a data collection method, which relied heavily on interpretivism as epistemology was conducted. The research sample consisted of all fourth year (final-year) undergraduate BEd students (n=713), who had to attend the compulsory teaching-practice component of the teacher training programme for the first time during the second and third quarters of the academic year. The BEd (Foundation Phase) students’ completed matrices (maps) were transcribed, coded and categorised through thematic analysis. As a result, two dimensions of the participants’ identity construction emerged: (1) Positive Role Modelling and (2) Missed Opportunities. It is suggested that mentor training, as well as scheduled talk-time and reflection opportunities between the mentors and mentees could transform the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) landscape and enrich the professional identity of Early Childhood Education teachers.