The Mentoring Chameleon - a critical analysis of mentors' and mentees' perceptions of the montoring role in professional education and training programmes for teachers, nurses, midwives and doctors.

During the past ten years, mentoring has been increasingly recognised as a key strategy in professional training and development programmes in education, health care, business and industry. Although the concept of mentoring is not entirely new, it is difficult to define. While frequent reference to the term �mentor� in everyday practice, training manuals and policy handbooks creates the impression that a general understanding of the notion of mentoring exists, the multitude of definitions and interpretations of how it is to be performed suggests otherwise. Mentoring can thus be perceived as a �helping process� (Caruso, 1990), a teaching-learning process (Ardery, 1990), as an intentional, structural, nurturing, insightful [process either developing along stages or rhythms, but not in series of events (Roberts, 2000). Bennetts (1996) adds a pedagogical, democratic dimension by stating that mentoring is learner-centred and progresses at the rate determined by the mentor and the mentee. Mentoring can thus cover a variety of activities ranging from helper functions to those of assessment. In addition, Herald (1999) lists career counselling, salary negotiations, job searches, curriculum vitae preparation and developing political savy as some of the multifarious activities to be performed by mentors. Depending on individual perceptions, the multiple purposes it serves and the various settings within which it occurs, practice remains inconsistent and idiosyncratic. However, within the context of professional training and development, a shift of emphasis away from the personal towards the professional is evident. Current conceptualisations of mentoring prevalent in the health and education context tend to bear little resemblance to the original Greek model, according to which the mentor�s role was that of an older, trusted and loyal friend, who responsible for the growth and development of the protégé and whose characteristics were integrity, wisdom and personal involvement. The relationship was highly personal and mutually respectful. Furthermore, the standards assessment frameworks within which the training of teachers, nurses, midwives, and more recently, that of doctors, is located, requires mentors to exercise the role of assessor, which is potentially problematic in terms of conflicting loyalties