Mentor teachers: Their perceived possibilities and challenges as mentor and teacher

• Combining the teacher and mentor teacher role in the classroom.
• Challenges when simultaneously performing both roles.
• Transferring (or not) responsibilities to student teacher?
• Intervening (or not) during student teachers' lessons?
• Teaching perceived as primary task. Mentoring felt only as an additional task.

This interview study, including seven case studies of mentor teachers in primary education, explores the possibilities and challenges these mentor teachers perceive when they (sequentially and simultaneously) combine the teacher and mentor roles. Mentor teachers perceive two challenges while simultaneously performing both roles in the same classroom: to transfer (or not) responsibility for the class and pupils to the student teacher and to intervene (or not) in classroom procedures. Mentor teachers felt that being the teacher of the pupils was their primary task, and being a mentor of the student teacher generally was perceived as an aside and additional task.