The Wiley International Handbook of Mentoring

28The Power, Politics, and Future of Mentoring

Geraldine Mooney Simmie

University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland

In this chapter, I first interrogate the policy background and political contexts of global neoliberal and neoconservative discourses which, taken together, shape important questions of quality and equity through new concepts and notions of “mentoring” and “teacher knowledge” in teacher education and learning (Ball, 2003; Giroux, 2015; Sellar & Lingard, 2014). Next, I draw from theoretical frameworks underpinning a humanization discourse of education for authentic democratization (Bernstein, 1990, 2000; Biesta, 2011, 2012; Mouffe, 2013) to provide an explanatory framework for Productive Mentoring (Mooney Simmie & Moles, 2011). This latter framework positions mentoring in teacher education and learning as an ethical‐political (ethico‐political) and philosophical construct. This positioning of mentoring in teacher education requires a moral and political will for critical consciousness and co‐inquiry within a holistic understanding of the complexity of education and mentoring as dynamic and relational practices (Mooney Simmie, de Paor, Liston, & O'Shea, 2017; Mooney Simmie & Edling, 2016; Opfer & Pedder, 2011). This person‐centered discourse for alternative frameworks is at the heart of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO, 2015) policy for re‐thinking education for a new global common ground. Thirdly, I outline the processes ...