Going general as a resource for doing advising in post-observation conferences in teacher training

•Going general is used in launching critiques and managing problematic uptake.•Going general entails depersonalizing the advice and invoking larger principles.•Depersonalizing diffuses the target of the problem or solution.•Principle invocation communicates the severity of the problem and certainty of the solution.•Going general promotes teacher alignment and facilitates professional socialization.

In mentor-teacher conversations, mentors routinely engage in the work of advising that entails pointing out problems and proposing solutions, both of which can suggest negative attributions to the teacher's competence, and by extension, encounter various forms of less-than-aligning responses. Based on 50 video-recorded post-observation meetings, this conversation analytic study details one specific resource-going general-mobilized by the mentors to handle the delicate work of critiques and suggestions without compromising the task of mentoring. As will be shown, going general entails depersonalizing the advice and invoking larger disciplinary or pedagogical principles. While depersonalization removes the relevance of any defensive next act and opens up a space for the possibility of achieving a collaborative understanding of a problem or solution, invoking a larger principle cements that understanding with its apparent irrefutability. Through such depersonalization and principle invocation, going general can effectively promote teacher alignment, and as such, facilitate professional socialization. Findings of this study contribute to the existing literature on advising and that on mentor-teacher conversations.