This study was situated in a Primary Teacher Education program in the Netherlands. The participants (N=16) comprised four each of: Pre-Service Teachers (PST); Mentor Teachers; School-Based Teacher Educators; and University-Based Teacher Educators. Video-recordings of four mentoring conversations for each PST which transcribed and translated for analysis. A mixed methodology was applied with analysis based on examining mentoring conversations in relation to the MERID-model through turn-taking analysis and Propositional Discourse Analysis. The study illustrates that mentors tend to use a more directive mentoring approach and that they dominate dialogue suggesting that there is aneed for reconsideration of the mentor-PST learning relationship and how it is understood in teacher education. •Mentoring roles are influential to the kind of knowledge PSTs acquire.•Summarizing and questioning lead PSTs to the elicitation of practical knowledge.•The encourager role improves PSTs' learning of generalized knowledge of practice.•The imperator role leads to situation-specific knowledge development of PSTs.