This study examines the barriers and dilemmas faced by beginning and novice mentors in post-compulsory education in the Southeast of England.
It aims to investigate ways in which mentors’ own values, beliefs and life experiences affected their mentoring practice. The authors used critical incidents methodology to categorize different types of professional experiences that mentors encountered and describes the strategies and rationales mentors used to support mentees. The authors conclude that the case studies represented examples of the dilemmas that mentors faced in post-compulsory education and demonstrated that mentoring is complex, and mediated by mentors’ motivation and values.