Résumé
According to TALIS 2018 results, pre-service teachers spend a growing amount of time in classrooms, increasing the time and importance of training by their mentor partners. However, mentors are not always well equipped to mentor novices: the new theoretical knowledge taught at the university is not necessarily familiar to the teachers appointed as mentors. Under these conditions, the expected benefits of mentoring may be compromised. This narrative literature review presents an alternative mentoring method called reverse mentoring (RM) which is argued to encourage professional learning and development within a symmetrical mentor–mentee relationship. Is RM relevant to teacher education? Can RM be one of the levers for improving mentoring? What avenues of research emerge from this review? Based on criteria that include adult and teacher education, 39 articles were studied in the review. The results shed light on the conceptual genesis of RM, the societal issues and the training objects. Not limited to the development of digital skills, RM acculturates experienced teachers now in the position of mentees to new theoretical knowledge and didactic disciplinary subjects, while supporting the student teacher’s classroom practice. The review demonstrates the flexibility of the training objects targeted and the conditions for implementing RM. Finally, a number of grey areas are identified that require further study, and notably the need to develop the RM skills of both mentees and mentors.