Teachers in Conference: A Qualitative Study of Teacher-Supervisor Face-to-Face Interactions

Ethnographic methods and conversation analysis were used to examine five teacher-supervisor conferences and their contexts. Related to the literature of supervision, teacher socialization, and mentoring, this report details how three teacher conference roles—passive, collaborative, and adversarial—were constructed, face-to-face and moment-by-moment. Teachers’ interactional resources are illuminated as supervisors’ presumed hegemony is reconsidered. Implications derived from this study include those for: supervision, educational leadership, school reform, teacher recruitment and placement, beginning teacher development, and action research.