This study was an investigation of mentor teachers who work in a Master of Education teacher preparation program. It examined mentors who work with teacher candidates to understand their conceptualization of their purpose in teacher education. The teacher preparation program that was the site of this study placed teacher candidates in the classroom for a year-long field experience aligned with the actual teaching calendar in schools and reflective of the clinical-based preparation called for by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, 2010). Attention to teacher preparation program outcomes has increased significantly in the past few years (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, 2013; Council of Chief State School Officers, 2013; Greenburg, Pomerance, & Walsh, NCTQ, 2011; NCATE, 2010). Within this focused interest on program outcomes and on the impact well-prepared teachers make on school improvement, field placements are viewed as more essential in the preparation of teacher candidates (Bullough, Draper, Smith, & Birrell, 2004; Korthagen, 2004; Valencia, Martin, Place, & Grossman, 2009; Zeichner, 2010). Therefore, because mentor teachers affect teacher candidates in the field, it is crucial to understand how mentor teachers conceive their role and purpose within teacher preparation, and how they can be supported prior to assuming this responsibility and throughout the time they spend with the teacher candidates. The dissertation research was divided into two major phases: Phase One was a survey administered to all mentor teachers who work with the program (n=54) early in spring, 2014. The analysis of the survey provided the data necessary to use purposeful sampling to select mentors who reported a commitment to diverse mentoring practices. Data was collected on the interview sample (n=6) in Phase Two through interviews and observations to document and analyze how mentors enacted practices that may or may not be consistent with their perceived purpose and role or with the existing literature on mentoring teacher candidates. Considering the importance of this mentoring relationship on the teacher candidates' preparation outcomes, identification of the approaches to mentoring that can be strengthened by preparation are important in order to emphasized these points as part of the development of partnerships that will strengthen the mentoring system. This research offered insight for teacher preparation programs relating to how mentors internalize their role and areas for development that may align mentoring practices with the educative functions that develop responsive teachers. The findings of this study offered suggestions for preparation that target the mentors' professional growth through collaborative and ongoing instructional and personal support.

The landscape of initial teacher education (ITE) in Britain is changing (BERA Inquiry, 2014). In England, trainee teachers’ routes to professional qualification are subject to assessment against Teachers’ Standards (Department for Education, 2012), which some argue enshrine the competences trainees require for professional life (Cole, 2008). Competence views of teaching are challenged elsewhere as reductive (Stanley and Stronach, 2012) and counter to the view that teaching (Hobson et al., 2008) and learning to teach (Hodgson, 2014) are complex pedagogical activities (Alexander, 2008). Some argue the competence-view of learning to teach reduces teaching to a “craft-based occupation” (Beauchamp et al., 2015), epitomized in entirely school-based training initiatives such as School Direct (National College for Teaching and Leadership, 2014a) with trainee teachers learning “on the job” (Department for Education, 2010, p23). This study aims to contribute to this debate by examining trainees’ professional development within the historical development of the teaching profession. Whilst undertaking a Post-graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), data on seven trainee teachers’ professional development were gathered throughout three school placements using active interviewing (Holstein and Gubrium, 1998), prior to within- and cross-case analysis (Creswell, 1998). Trainees’ hand-drawn trajectories of professional development show turning points (Vygotsky, 1978) which direct analysis towards key influences on a complex intellectual process of learning about practice (Dreier, 2002), refining indications from earlier analysis using a componential model of professional development (Evans, 2011). Using Vygotsky’s method of developmental study (Vygotsky, 1978), professional development is understood as a historical process whereby practice-related concepts “take shape” (ibid.) and trainees’ learning (about practice) supports their (professional) development. A relational agency interpretation (Edwards, 2007b) emphasises the influence on trainees’ professional development of working jointly with professional colleagues on problem-resolution, contingent on trainees’ learning through tool and sign use during practice (Wertsch et al., 1993). The findings of this small study suggest that trainee teachers’ professional development is only adequately conceptualised as a complex process led by the intellectual activity of learning about practice. The implications of reframing learning to teach as a social and relational practice implies a personalised approach to teacher education which, this study finds, may support the development of responsive practitioners.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the communicative and discursive practices used by Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) networks when marketing their network to women as both a business opportunity and as a sisterhood, in order to start and contribute to the conversation regarding the relatively unsupervised communicative practices and their potential effects of MLM distribution networks. By conducting an extensive qualitative analysis on eighteen group call videos posted publicly on YouTube by affiliates of six different MLM networks, this thesis examines the marketing practices used to appropriate feminist values in order to recruit women and sell products. The analysis is done through a theoretical framework of Feminist Media Theory with a focus on feminist values, femvertising, and corporate feminism, in combination with the concept Relational Agency. These theoretical frameworks are used to critically analyze the discursive practices used in the videos. The analysis shows that MLM contractors are utilizing discursive practices such as advertising feminist values to market products and opportunities to potential recruits and downlines. Some of the feminist values communicated are, for example, inclusivity, empowering messages, financial gain, and independency. The findings further suggests that the marketing practices used may have an effect on individuals involved, and on the greater feminist movement at large.

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本研究從廣義的社區傳播觀點出發，探討傳統社會結構限制下的社區已婚女性，如何展現她們的能動性從家庭「走出來」，並且成為社區大學和在地社區產生連結的中介角色。在已婚女性的個人能動性方面，研究者發現根據女性所擁有的資源差異，會影響她們自我定位協商的方式。其中自主性內隱的女性，使用了「以退為進」的戰術，有意識或無意識地鬆動了傳統「賢妻良母」的自我定位。而在女性發揮能動性的過程裡，她們也展現出一種默會知識樣貌──同理心和禮物經濟。這些默會知識的運用，使她們得以在家庭和社大的場域，扮演橋樑般的角色，在情感層面上建立起對班級、社大與社區的集體認同，以及可被用於即時動員的人際網絡。而她們也會以自己的知識經驗為基礎，將社大的理念轉化為她們所認可的具體行動。 / The idea of "Community Communication" is not limited to the use of community media. In a broader perspective, interpersonal communication in everyday life should also be identified as a sphere of community communication. Therefore my research focused on the interpersonal communication of four married women who took courses in Chi-Mei Community University. From their cases, the agency of married women who lived under traditional social restraints was distinctively uncovered. As long as these female students found their own way out of domestic life, they voluntarily became mediators in community communication. They helped Chi-Mei staff not only in running courses more smoothly but also in building rapport with local inhabitants successfully. All these female students identified themselves with the roles of "wives and mothers." However, based on the different resources they acquired, they developed various tactics in the re-negotiation of self-identities during the post-parental period. In one case where the husband had more power over his wife, the wife swiftly came up with strategic approaches that instead helped her gain the advantages over her husband (sometimes even without his knowing it). With this kind of wit cultivated from daily communications, while studying in Chi-Mei Community University, these married women even foster certain tacit knowledge which can be defined as "empathy" and "gift economy". By making use of tacit knowledge, these women translated the concepts advocated by Chi-Mei staff into real actions. And they were able to mobilize their family members and friends in taking these actions as well. Yet they did not associate their voluntary contributions with the abstract concepts, but attributed the actions to their sense of belongings as a community with Chi-Mei and the people whom they admired. These female students actually underestimated their importance in community mobilization. In fact, after Typhoon Morakot seriously damaged southern Taiwan in August 2009, the community networks fostered by women’s interpersonal communication played crucial roles in delivering materials to those victims in need. This was a good example of how the loosely connected networks could be activated at some critical moment while community mobilization is urgently required.