While new teacher mentoring has traditionally focused on socio-emotional support and professional socialization, understanding mentors' role in developing novices' content teaching is needed given new educational reforms. Few researchers have explored a knowledge/practice base for content-focused mentoring. Therefore, we ask: what do content…

The task of preparing and supporting new teachers for working with diverse youth has generated widespread interest in induction and mentoring programs (Wang & Odell, 2002). However, much of mentoring in practice falls short of equity- and diversity-focused work. It can be better characterized as "situational adjustment, technical advice, and…

The purpose of this article is to examine how and to what extent schools' responses to accountability policies in the United States influence the ability of new teachers of color to draw on their own and their students' cultural resources to engage in culturally responsive teaching. A 5-year study of 17 new teachers of color reveals that these…

Given calls to diversify the teaching workforce, this review examines research on retention and turnover of teachers of color, focusing on new teachers because they leave at disproportionately high rates. Reviewing 70 studies, the authors found that (a) recent national studies identify turnover rates for teachers of color are now higher than those…

New teachers are unprepared for school politics and the conflicts they experience with administrators, colleagues and policies. Research and practice on mentoring often ignore organizational contexts. This article explores these under-examined contexts, asking: (1) What do mentors need to know and be able to do in relation to school and district…

In this article, Betty Achinstein and Rodney Ogawa examine the experiences of two new teachers who resisted mandated "fidelity" to Open Court literacy instruction in California. These two case studies challenge the portrayal of teacher resistance as driven by psychological deficiency and propose instead that teachers engage in…

Research on new teachers identifies two critical challenges in relation to how novices view their students: practice shock that results in an over focus on controlling students and a cultural mismatch that causes novices to see diversity as a problem. This article explores how mentoring strategies intervene at this critical phase, influencing…

Examined the practice of experienced teacher induction leaders and mentor-new teacher pairs to determine what mentors needed to know and be able to do to sharpen new teachers' focus on individual student learning and growth. Results found that mentors were able to focus new teachers on individual student learning, particularly among…

This article explores the possibility that state educational policies, involving accountability and instructional reform, and local district and school conditions interact with teachers' personal and professional backgrounds to shape two tracks of new teachers that reinforce existing educational inequities. The present 2-year study incorporated…