Mentoring is often portrayed as an unqualified good. Teacher educators claim that mentoring holds promise for beginning teacher development, increased retention of novice teachers, and mentor-teacher improvement. Drawing on positioning theory, this study describes negotiation of power and position in a failed triad composed of a public school…

Interviews with cooperating teachers investigated their beliefs about the student teaching triad. Results indicated that in the power hierarchy, cooperating teachers were at the apex, student teachers were second in power, and pupils third. When university supervisors visited, they moved to the apex, with pupils out of the triad. The paper…