Editorial

We are delighted to introduce the fourth and final issue of Volume 6 of the International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education (IJMCE), and to reflect on the whole volume and the progress of IJMCE more generally. In total, Volume 6 includes 22 original articles and three book reviews, written by leading mentoring and coaching scholars from around the globe. Our authors hail (in order of most frequent) from the USA, Australia, England, Canada, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Malta, Norway, Qatar and Pakistan.

In Volume 6, Issue 1, Pascale Brodeur, Simon Larose, George Tarabulsy and Bei Feng explored associations between different mentor behavioral profiles and mentees’ perceptions of the quality of mentoring relationships; Jane Kirkby, Julianne Moss and Sally Godinho showed how Bourdieu’s social learning theory can be a valuable tool to investigate mentoring relationships; Gary Houchens, Tom Stewart and Sara Jennings examined how coaching techniques help school principals improve their instructional leadership; Amanda McGraw and Robert Davis investigated the influence of a number of contextual features of school environments on the support mentors provided to pre-service teachers; and Kevin Norley reflected on the nuances, experiences and challenges associated with subject-specific mentoring within a distinctive learning environment, namely, mathematics for English as a second language classes for 16-18-year-olds.

In Volume 6, Issue 2, Lyle Hamm explored the leadership role(s) of vice principals in diverse, multi-ethnic schools and communities, and the supervision and mentoring support they required to help them become more effective leaders in such contexts; Peter Whipp and Richard Pengelley discussed the positive impacts of a strengths-based approach to peer coaching and peer observation of teaching and in university departments; Dilani Perera-Diltz and Jill Duba Sauerheber investigated the valued components of doctoral degree training in counselor education among new graduates, highlighting that mentorship was highly valued by new counselor educators; David Cameron and Anna Grant explored ways in which external subject-specific mentoring can influence the professional identity construction of early career physics teachers; and Chyllis Scott and Diane Miller highlighted the personal and academic growth fostered through organic peer mentoring relationships amongst doctoral students.

Volume 6, Issue 3 was a focused Special Issue titled Mentoring Beginning Teachers: Professional Learning for Mentees and Mentors, with Dr Rachel Shanks (University of Aberdeen, UK) as Guest Editor. The six papers in this issue examined mentoring for student teachers and newly qualified teachers from different international perspectives. When the papers are viewed as a whole, it becomes evident that there are similar challenges for mentoring programs in a variety of settings where individuals are “learning to teach.” There are many variations of how beginning teachers are mentored in terms of process, frequency of meetings, preparation for the mentors, orientation for the mentees, pairing of mentors to mentees and how university personnel are involved, yet the authors of the papers in this issue describe common emphases on the themes of critical reflective practice, inquiry into professional practice, collaboration and professional learning for both mentors and mentees as key aims for beginning teacher mentoring programs. In her introduction to the special issue, Shanks summarizes the papers and outlines a number of implications of the research findings for teacher education programs in the international context.

In this fourth and final issue of IJMCE Volume 6, Youmen Chaaban and Abdullah Abu-Tineh examine the development of a professional development model for educator growth and learning that is embedded into the school context in Qatar, with a particular emphasis on the role and perceptions of (and challenges faced by) instructional coaches; Bruce Barnett, Alan Shoho and Nathern Okilwa interrogate the support mentors provide to assistant principals, and the professional learning activities that aid their growth as school leaders; Sylvia Mendez, Valerie Martin Conley, Rebecca Keith, Comas Haynes and Rosario Gerhardt discuss the nature and impact of a mentoring and advocacy-networking paradigm, grounded in the social cognitive career theory, which was designed to support the career progression of underrepresented minority faculty in the USA; Samantha Shields and Megan Murray examine beginning teachers’ perceptions of the role of the mentor in the early stages of developing a professional identity, showing that the extent to which mentors recognize (or not) the legitimacy of beginning teachers as being part of the school community influences the development of beginning teachers’ professional identities; and Mary Knight-McKenna, Judy Esposito and Lindsay Michelle Clement chronicle the attempts of a new white teacher – in her first two years of teaching in an elementary school with a largely Hispanic population – to forge connections with her students’ families, highlighting the benefits of new teacher mentoring programs which include an emphasis on family-teacher relationships.

We would like to congratulate and thank those colleagues whose contributions to IJMCE were recognized in the 2017 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence. The awards were:

Best paper:

• Cultivating the emotional intelligence of instructional coaches Megan Tschannen-Moran, Carol B. Carter (IJMCE, Volume 5, Number 4)

Highly commended papers:

• Coaching for professional growth in one Australian school: “oil in water” Deborah M. Netolicky (IJMCE, Volume 5, Number 2)

• Mentors’ behavioral profiles and college adjustment in young adults participating in an academic mentoring program Pascale Brodeur, Simon Larose, George M. Tarabulsy, Bei Feng (Volume 6, Number 1)

• The politics of coaching assistant principals: exploring principal control Chad R. Lochmiller, Jennifer R. Karnopp (Volume 5, Number 3)

Outstanding reviewers:

• Paul Close

• Linda Craig

• Goran Fransson

Last but certainly not least, we would like to express our gratitude to all members of our excellent reviewer panel who generously give their time, effort and expertise for the benefit of their peers and for advancing knowledge and practice in mentoring and coaching in education. Without their support, we would be unable to publish the high-quality, original research that IJMCE provides. A sincere thank you from the editorial team and publisher to all of the following colleagues who between August 2016 and September 2017 reviewed manuscripts submitted to IJMCE:

Alston, Geleana

Ambrosetti, Angelina

Armstrong, Denise

Arshavskaya, Ekaterina

Asada, Tadashi

Attard Tonna, Michelle

Audsley, Linda

Augustine-Shaw, Donna

Bailey, Moira

Ballaro, Julie

Ballenger, Julia

Barnett, Bruce

Beltman, Susan

Boag-Munroe, Gill

Boak, George

Booth, Josephine

Bozack, Amanda

Bullough, Robert

Cameron, David

Carmouche, Millicent

Castanheira, Patricia

Celoria, Davide

Clark, Lisa

Cochrane, Matt

Collet, Vicki

Craig, Linda

Crowe, Tracey

Crutcher, Paul

Cureton, Debra

D’Souza, Lisa

Daly, Caroline

Dominguez, Nora

Dorner, Helga

Duchaine, Ellen

Eastman, Christine

Eissa, Safaa

Emad, Gholam Reza

Evans, Angie

Feiman-Nemser, Sharon

Fillery-Travis, Annette

Firth, Pam

Fitzgibbon, Karen

Gallant, Andrea

Garza, Rubén

Germain, Marie-Line

Gilroy, Peter

Giossi, Stella

Gobato, Paula

Godden, Lorraine

Harrison, Lorraine

Houston, Don

Hudson, Peter

Ilgan, Abdurrahman

Irby, Beverly

Jack, David

James-Ward, Cheryl

Johnson, Robin

Kamm, Ruth

Kensington-Miller, Barbara

Killion, Joellen

Kindall, Heather

Kochan, Frances

Kwan, Paula

Ladyshewsky, Rick

Langdon, Frances

Lunsford, Laura

MacPhee, Deborah

Malderez, Angi

Manning, Catherine

Marsh, Brian

Maxwell, Bronwen

McIntyre, Joanna

McMahan, Sarah

Meeus, Wil

Meierdirk, Charlotte

Meyer, Marcy

Morin, Diane

Netolicky, Deborah

Ng, Pak Tee

Olson, Joann

Oti, Janet

Reali, Aline

Rebelo do Santos, Nuno

Riskus, Mike

Robinson, Tryphina

Salcedo-Potter, Nina

Sciarappa, Kathleen

Shanks, Rachel

Sherrod, Sonya

Smith, Kari

Snowden, Michael

Starr-Glass, David

Tajeddini, Kayhan

Wakeman, Brian

Wall, Tony

Wildy, Helen

Wilkins, Elizabeth

Wright, Corinne

Yirci, Ramazan

Andrew J. Hobson and Linda J. Searby