Jeruchim and Shapiro also believe that mentoring implies some elements of power relationship: A close, intense, mutually beneficial relationship between someone who is older, wiser, more experienced, and more powerful with someone younger or less experienced. It is a complementary relationship, within an organizational or professional context, built on both the mentor’s and the protégé’s needs – as cited in Young, Bullough, Draper, Smith, & Erickson (2005, pp. 169-170 ). In their definition, Ambrosetti and Dekkers (2010) refute the existing hierarchy in mentoring relationship, rather, describe it as reciprocal and well-negotiated process: Mentoring is a non-hierarchical, reciprocal relationship between mentors and mentees who work towards …show more content…
(p. 52). Gormley (2008) defines mentoring relationship as “close relationships that occur along a spectrum from highly functional to highly dysfunctional, with most occurring in between” (p. 45), where “functional mentoring relationships facilitate the psychosocial and career development of mentees (and sometimes mentors), whereas dysfunctional mentoring relationships can negatively impact the careers and psychosocial stability of both parties” (p. 46), implying by dysfunctional relationship such issues as job dissatisfaction, low level of performance, or, overall anxiety. Although mentoring relationship assumes that both sides – mentors and mentees are equally important participants who pursue one common goal during the pedagogical practicum, there still exists a disparity among the researchers’ opinions regarding the question of power in the mentoring dyad, where the dominant role is often attributed to the mentor. Whereas on the one hand some researchers (i.e. Aderibigbe et al., 2016; Kullman, 1998) strongly hold against the viability of equal partnership relations between the mentor and a novice, and some (i.e. Wyre et al., 2016) fully empower mentoring status, declaring the mentor to be …show more content…
Drawing on the existing definitions, mentorship can be defined as a relationship between the experienced mentor and a less experienced student teacher, whose main goal hinges on developing professional skills via sharing knowledge (either practical or theoretical) with each other and reflecting on the obtained experience. Mentoring relationships evolve as hierarchical at the beginning, accompanied with the mentor’s careful guidance and support toward the mentee, who gradually turns into a full-fledged autonomous teacher, thereby altering the hierarchical model into a non-hierarchical