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Abstract This research adopted an activity theory lens to analyse the implementation of a teacher mentor training program. The aim of the research was to understand how contradictions within the mentoring activity system impacted on the implementation of mentoring in school contexts. The Teacher Mentor Training (TMT) program (pseudonym) was developed as a systemic response to national and state government reviews of teacher education in Australia. The TMT program ran for six years in one Australian state with over 4000 teachers participating in the two-day face-to-face program. On completion of the program, teachers were expected to act as leads in mentoring back in their schooling contexts. As the mentor training program was a system-wide initiative with substantial government investment of fiscal and human resources, equitable implementation of mentoring in schools across the sector was expected, along with sustained impacts of the program. Data were collected three years after the program ceased via interviews with teacher mentors who completed the TMT program. Findings revealed that contradictions in mentoring across the sector were often dependent on the leadership in the school contexts. These contradictions contributed as obstacles in ensuring equitable mentoring across school contexts.
Tangen et al. (Mon,) studied this question.