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Mentor Relationships
Mentor Relationships J E Rhodes, S R Lowe, and S E O Schwartz, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA ã 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary Looking glass self: Conceived by Charles Horton Cooley, the concept that sense of self is influenced by interpersonal interactions and imagined perceptions of others. Mentor: An older or more experienced adult or peer who provides support and guidance to a younger prote´ge´. Meta-analysis: A statistical technique that combines the results of many studies. Natural mentor: A mentor who is not assigned through a formal mentoring program, but has naturally come to serve
Introduction Organized approaches to mentoring youth in the United States date back more than a century to reform-oriented initiatives in the juvenile court system, which ultimately gave rise to Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS). Although BBBS remains the largest and most well-known program of its kind, the past few decades have seen a remarkable proliferation of thousands of programs that seek to pair caring, adult volunteers with youth from at-risk backgrounds. An estimated three million youth are in formal one-to-one mentoring relationships in the United States, and funding and growth imperatives continue to fuel program expansion. Even larger numbers of youth report experiencing mentoring relationships outside of these types of programs with adults such as teachers, coaches, neighbors, and extended family. Anecdotal accounts of the protective qualities of mentoring relationships and their life-transforming effects on young people abound in the media. Federal funding for mentoring programs has increased substantially as well, with annual Congressional appropriations of $100 million for mentoring between 2004 and 2008. It is only relatively recently, however, that social and behavioral scientists have focused their attention on a more rigorous examination of mentoring for children and adolescents. Below, we review the highlights of this research; discussing different approaches to youth mentoring and then summarizing the research on 1. the effects of mentoring relationships on adolescent development; 2. factors that predict variation in relationship effectiveness; and 3. the processes through which these relationships exert such effects.
Different Approaches to Youth Mentoring A range of mentoring relationships, from those that develop naturally, to those that are formally created through communityand school-based programs, to those that are a hybrid of natural and formal approaches, fall under the rubric of mentoring.
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a mentoring role in the life of a younger or less experienced individual. Examples of natural mentors are extended family members, teachers, coaches, and neighbors. Reflected appraisals: George Herbert Mead’s concept of how individuals’ ideas about how others see them influence how they see themselves. Zone of proximal development: The space between what a child could learn on his or her own and what he or she could not learn even with the help of a more experienced peer or adult. Coined by psychologist Lev Vygotsky.
Natural Mentors Natural mentoring relationships typically arise within social networks, and are characterized by bonds between older, more experienced adults and younger prote´ge´s. These relationships are typically between youth and extended family members, such as uncles, aunts, grandparents and godparents, as well as neighbors, teachers, afterschool providers, guidance counselors, and church members. Natural mentors provide ongoing guidance, instruction, and encouragement, facilitating the adolescents’ transition into adulthood. Youth appear to derive a range of benefits from natural mentors, including perceptions of greater support, higher optimism, and improved future orientation. Having such natural mentorship is also associated with high school graduation and high expectations about careers. More generally, intergenerational relationships have long been recognized as an important resource in low-income, minority communities. Sociologist Elijah Anderson, for example, has described how respected authority figures in urban communities act as “a kind of guidance counselor and moral cheerleader.” Similarly, social theorist Patricia Hill Collins has noted the protective influence of older African American women, referring to them as “other mothers.” Such mentors often provide guidance, encouragement, and emotional support, promoting social, academic, and vocational outcomes. Mentors may serve as concrete examples of resilience and optimism in the face of adversity, demonstrating qualities and behaviors that young adults might wish to imitate. Natural mentors can also assist youth more directly through their emotional support and by advocating on behalf of youth, helping them establish and make use of connections and resources in their communities. Unfortunately, many youth do not readily find older, supportive adults beyond the boundaries of their household. Shifting marital patterns, overcrowded schools, and loss of community cohesiveness have dramatically reduced the availability of caring adults and restricted their opportunities for informal contact with youth. The social fabric is stretched particularly thin in urban centers where many of the middleclass adults who once served as respected authority figures in
Encyclopedia of Adolescence, Volume 2
doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-373915-5.00070-X
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the community have fled to the suburbs, and far fewer of the adults who remain are willing or able to offer support and guidance to youth outside their families. To address the needs of youth who lack attention from caring adults, people from a wide spectrum of disciplines and interests are turning to volunteer mentoring programs.
Community-Based Mentoring Programs Many mentoring programs are community-based, wherein program personnel match volunteer mentors with at-risk youth. Mentors and youth generally meet on a weekly basis, with each mentor–youth match choosing where and when to meet. Community-based mentoring (CBM) programs typically ask mentors to commit to mentoring for a minimum of 1 year. A prime example of such a program is Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS). Founded in 1904, BBBS organizations now serve thousands of at-risk youth in all 50 states and in 12 countries. In the early 1990s, Public/Private Ventures, a Philadelphia-based research organization, conducted a randomized-controlled trial of BBBS programs in the United States in which youth who received mentoring were compared to those who were on a waitlist. At an 18-month follow-up, youth who had been assigned mentors reported a variety of improvements compared to their waitlisted counterparts. For example, they were less likely to initiate drug or alcohol use, skipped fewer classes, felt greater competence in their academic abilities, and reported improvements in their parental and peer relationships. Notably, however, 6 months later, most of these gains were no longer statistically significant. Discussed in greater detail in a later section, this groundbreaking study has been reanalyzed to determine the characteristics of youth and mentoring relationships that are associated with the greater benefits of mentoring. Another notable CBM program is Across Ages, which is the only mentoring program that has achieved the status of ‘model program’ on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP), an online registry of independently reviewed and rated interventions. Across Ages includes a select group of mentors, adults over the age of 55, who are paired with youth who are deemed at-risk due to economic disadvantage, academic or behavioral problems, and few positive adult role models. The program has expanded to over 30 sites in 17 states and continues to boast relatively low volunteer attrition and match durations that greatly exceed national averages. In addition, randomized controlled studies have found that the program encourages positive behavioral, academic, and psychosocial outcomes. BBBS and Across Ages are just two of the thousands of CBM programs in the United States. Other programs include those that target at-risk youth in general, or that are tailored to specific groups of youth, including juvenile offenders, foster care youth, and many others.
School-Based Mentoring Programs Beyond CBM programs, other mentoring programs are integrated into youth’s schools. In fact, school-based mentoring
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(SBM) is curently the fastest growing form of mentoring in the United States. In SBM programs, mentors meet with youth during the school day or after school in the school building and often provide academic assistance in addition to emotional support, guidance, and companionship. BBBS has expanded their program portfolio to include SBM. Their SBM programs have recently been subject to a rigorous, randomized-controlled evaluation through Public/Private Ventures, conducted by Carla Herrera and her colleagues. In SBM, interactions between youth and mentors typically are confined to the school setting and the 1-year minimum commitment of mentors is shortened to the 9-month school year. Because SBM is linked to the academic calendar, mentoring relationships tend to be less enduring than those forged through CBM. Indeed, the average length of the relationships in the SBM evaluation was just 5.3 months (compared to 11.4 months in the CBM evaluation), and nearly half (48%) of the relationships did not continue into the following school year. Notably, in BBBS SBM evaluation, approximately half of the mentors were high school students mentoring younger students. Overall, findings from the BBBS SBM evaluation were mixed. At the end of the first school year, youth assigned to receive mentoring showed significant improvements in their academic performance, perceived scholastic efficacy, school misconduct, and attendance relative to the control group. These effects did not persist over time, however, and, when youth were reassessed a few months into the following school year, most differences were no longer statistically significant. Again, further research has elucidated the qualities of SBM relationships that tended to yield greater benefits among youth. More recently, Lawrence Bernstein and his colleagues conducted a random-assignment evaluation of the Department of Education’s (ED) Student Mentoring Program. Although this national evaluation was rigorously conducted, the original grant itself imposed few specifications on program practice. There was also a mismatch between the rigorous academic outcomes that ED wanted measured, and what can realistically be expected from mentoring programs. Like BBBS SBM programs, the average length of relationship was short, specifically, 5.8 months or approximately 20–25 h of mentoring over the course of the school-year. Moreover, a full 35% of the control group students received mentoring, either from the program or elsewhere in the community, while 17% of the treatment group students never met with a mentor. Finally, in the context of these problems, relatively stringent post hoc analyses were applied which masked several small, but significant group effects emerging from the study. Although subgroup analyses of these data hinted at variability in effects among different groups of youth, the overall evaluation yielded no significant impacts for the Student Mentoring Program. The $50 million federal allocation for this program was recently cut. Recently, Karen Randolph and Jeanette Johnson conducted a meta-analysis of eight SBM programs. They found that SBM programs, overall, have beneficial effects on youth. Specifically, they found youth in SBM had increased connectedness in schools, families, and communities. There was variation in the effectiveness of SBM, however, related to qualities of the mentoring relationships.
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Integration of Mentoring Within Other Youth Services Just as mentoring programs are increasingly integrated into schools, they are also, albeit to a lesser degree, being integrated into other programs that serve youth, including after-school programs, summer camps, competitive sports teams, church youth groups, and other positive youth development programs. These additional contexts represent rich opportunities for the formation of strong intergenerational ties. Adults in these settings are often afforded ongoing opportunities to engage youth in the sorts of informal conversations and enjoyable activities that can give rise to close bonds. In addition to informal relationships forged through faith-based communities, a large number of formal mentoring programs are also faith-based, either taking place in or sponsored by a religious organization. Religious communities often provide ongoing encouragement and mentoring through youth outreach and services. Since social policies in general, and mentoring programs in particular, often do not reach or support the most severely disadvantaged youth, churches often play a critical supportive role. This is particularly true in urban, Black churches, which tend to be socially active in their communities and participate in a wide range of community programs. In addition, vulnerable youth often come in contact with publicly funded service systems such as welfare, juvenile justice, housing, and teen-parenting programs. Adolescents entering these systems are less likely than others to gain access to mentoring or other youth development programs. Although many such youth would benefit from the support of caring adults, these systems rarely capitalize on this potential. The programs are often inaccessible, disconnected from one another, and staffed with professionals who are burdened with large caseloads. With more deliberate planning, such settings could be made more responsive to the needs of youth. One such example is the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration Mentor Program, which matches adult volunteers with youth serving time in Washington State Correction Institutions. This program was found to decrease recidivism among mentored youth, relative to a control group, after 12 months. These results, however, did not persist into 24- and 36-month follow-up assessments.
Youth-Initiated Mentoring Programs A relatively novel approach to establishing mentoring relationships is Youth-Initiated Mentoring (YIM). In such programs, youth nominate mentors from people in their existing social network (e.g., teachers, neighbors) who are then trained to be mentors. One such example is the National Guard Youth Challenge Program. This program provides youth and their families with support for how to identify potential mentors. After a mentor is nominated, the program provides training in mentorship and caseworkers stay in contact with mentors throughout the match. This approach to mentoring has the potential to blend the flexibility of natural mentoring with the structure and evidence-based practice of more formalized approaches. By relying on youth-recruited mentors, programs avoid long waitlists, a major obstacle to serving youth in traditional, assigned mentoring programs. Moreover, because the volunteers are
typically embedded in the youth’s natural networks, they are potentially more committed to being a mentor, more attuned to the constraints, opportunities, and social ecologies of those settings, and more likely to endure in their mentoring role. In addition, particularly for older youth who may not have had a lot of positive experiences with adults in the past, youth may be more likely to trust a mentor whom they chose and with whom they already have a relationship. Finally, by teaching high-risk youth strategies for identifying, recruiting, and drawing on the support of caring adults in their networks, YIM programs confer valuable interpersonal skills that can transfer to other contexts in the future. Initial research suggests that allowing youth a role in choosing their mentor may result in more effective mentoring relationships.
Overall Effectiveness of Youth Mentoring It is clear that several forms of mentoring exist in the United States, and that mentoring relationships have great potential to benefit at-risk youth. How effective are these programs, as a whole, in facilitating positive outcomes? Researchers have attempted to synthesize the literature on youth mentoring through two methods: literature reviews and meta-analysis.
Review Articles Over the past decade, there have been several literature reviews synthesizing empirical research on youth mentoring, both in general and for particular groups (e.g., juvenile offenders, youth with special needs). Although these reviews can be helpful to researchers and practitioners, they often draw sharply different conclusions about the effectiveness of mentoring. Discrepancies among reviews often stem from the studies that are considered. Reviews are only as strong as the research and evaluations on which they stake their claims and can vary considerably in their methodological rigor, for example, in the inclusion criteria used and how much they are weighted toward peer-reviewed studies. In addition, authors’ biases, whether intentional or not, can affect how evidence is weighed. Two sources in particular, namely, the evaluation of BBBS CBM programs and a metaanalysis conducted in 2002 by psychologist David DuBois and colleagues, have been both influential and interpreted in an overly positive light. Reviews of the mentoring literature have often cited DuBois’ meta-analysis of 55 evaluations. This study represents the most scientifically rigorous verdict on the effectiveness of CBM. The researchers began by identifying all of the relevant studies on the topic. To be included in the analyses, studies had to meet several criteria. First, the evaluated program needed to include a one-to-one relationship in which an older, more experienced mentor was paired with a younger (under 19 years old) mentee. Second, the study had to examine empirically the effects of participation in a mentoring program, by preprogram versus postprogram comparisons of the same group of youth, or by comparisons between one group of youth receiving mentoring and another group not receiving mentoring. After identifying relevant studies, the researchers
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summarized the results of each study and then calculated effect sizes across the entire group of studies. The favorable effects of mentoring programs were found to hold true across relatively diverse types of program samples, including programs in which mentoring was provided alone or in conjunction with other services. Positive effects were found both in programs that had general goals and in those with more focused goals, and held up for youth of varying backgrounds and demographic characteristics. Among the small number of studies that included follow-up assessments, the benefits of mentoring appeared to extend a year or more beyond the end of a youth’s participation in the program. However, DuBois and colleagues note that the magnitude of these effects on the average youth participating in a mentoring program was quite modest. Other review articles have put heavy weight on the landmark study of BBBS CBM programs. In this study, Public/Private Ventures’ evaluators, Jean Grossman and Joseph Tierney, traced the experiences of youth given access to the program, as well as a control group, over a period of 18 months. Several statistically significant differences in behavioral and academic functioning between the mentored group and the control were detected at a 1-year follow-up. These differences have been widely cited in reviews of mentoring research as evidence that mentoring relationships are highly effective. When assessed more carefully, however, these claims prove problematic. In particular, the effect size estimates were small, indicating that mentoring had little impact on youth outcomes. In addition, reviews giving heavy weight to the BBBS study imply that youth mentoring is a highly costeffective intervention. In fact, findings have shown that this claim is likely exaggerated and that, taking into account taxpayer and other costs, the benefits exceed the costs by very small margins (approximately $1.01 of benefit to $1.00 of cost). Despite these somewhat discouraging trends, the group differences that have been uncovered in national evaluations do give grounds for cautious optimism about the potential viability of mentoring interventions. In the light of the vast continuum in the quality and duration that existed in the mentoring relationships, it would have been unrealistic to expect a relatively loosely structured social program to produce dramatic, across-the-board reversals of the negative trajectories that are typical of adolescence. Indeed, matches vary considerably in their effectiveness, depending on the characteristics of the individuals involved and the quality of the relationships they form, in ways that affect outcomes. When all relationships are combined, as was the case in the analyses conducted for national evaluations, positive outcomes are easily masked by the neutral and even negative outcomes associated with less effective mentoring relationships. The challenge is to identify those program inputs and factors that can facilitate the formation of close, enduring, and, ultimately, effective mentor– youth ties, a task for which meta-analysis is well suited.
Meta-Analysis A series of meta-analyses have permitted researchers to empirically summarize the results of mentoring across multiple studies and to statistically determine the strength of program-related effects. Comparisons across studies have revealed important
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patterns and gaps in the literature. Meta-analysis permits researchers to empirically summarize results on a single topic across multiple studies and to statistically determine the strength of program-related effects. Notably, meta-analyses are not without problems. For example, the method does not typically control for the design flaws of the studies that are included, and researchers’ ability to code studies on various dimensions. Nonetheless, meta-analysis does have several advantages. Comparisons across studies can reveal important patterns and gaps in the literature, sources of bias can be controlled, and statistical power is increased when samples are combined. The most comprehensive meta-analysis on youth mentoring to date is the aforementioned study of 55 evaluations by David DuBois and colleagues. As noted earlier, the magnitude of these effects of mentoring relationships on the average youth was quite modest, particularly in comparison to the effect sizes that have been found in meta-analyses of other prevention programs for children and adolescents. But, importantly, while the overall effect size of mentoring programs was modest, substantial variation in the effectiveness of different programs emerged across these studies. Notably, more structured programs, in which there were clear expectations, a focus on instrumental goals, and the ongoing support to volunteer mentors, yielded the strongest effects. More recently, psychologist Patrick Tolan and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 31 youth mentoring programs. Focusing on a more limited array of outcomes, the researchers found moderate effects of youth mentoring on delinquent and aggressive outcomes, and smaller effects for drug use and academic outcomes. An additional meta-analysis by Darrick Jolliffe and David Farrington focused on the effects of youth mentoring on recidivism among juvenile offenders. Their analyses, which were based on 18 evaluations, revealed only a very small impact. However, significant variation emerged across studies, related to characteristics of the mentoring programs and mentoring relationships within them. Looking at a broader range of outcomes, another recent meta-analysis by Lillian Eby and colleagues examined the effects of 40 youth mentoring evaluations, comparing them to 53 adult workplace mentoring and 23 college-level academic mentoring evaluations. Again, the effect sizes of youth mentoring were generally small, with mentoring more highly related to some outcomes (school attitudes) than others (psychological distress), and youth mentoring showing a smaller impact on outcomes than the other two forms of mentoring.
Predicting Variation If mentoring relationships, overall, have only small effects on youth development and are barely cost effective, why are they considered to have major potential in improving the lives of adolescents? Fortunately, in line with public perceptions, some mentoring relationships are extremely effective and secondary analyses of large, national data sets have elucidated factors that impact their effectiveness. These factors can be roughly divided into the following categories: youth characteristics, mentor characteristics, mentoring relationship characteristics, and program practices.
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Youth Characteristics Interpersonal history Children and adolescents who have enjoyed healthy relationships with their parents may more easily be drawn to adults as role models and confidants. In such cases, often found among youth with natural mentors, the relationship may focus more on the acquisition of skills and the advancement of critical thinking than on emotional issues. Along these lines, youth who have positive relationships with their parents, particularly their mothers, have been found to reap more benefits from their mentoring relationships. This suggests that mentors may not entirely compensate for insecure family bonds, and instead might be beneficial as long as there is already a minimum level of support from at least one parent. However, youth who have experienced unsatisfactory or difficult parental ties may initially resist the overtures of a caring adult, but over time develop more intense bonds with their mentors that help to satisfy their social and emotional needs. Mentoring relationships also may serve to compensate for absent relationships. Immigrant youths, for example, many of whom have suffered long separations from their parents, may gravitate to mentors for compensatory emotional support. Mentors may provide these youth with a safe haven for learning new cultural norms and practices, as well as with information that is vital to success in school. Youth in foster homes, including those who have suffered child abuse and neglect, have also been found to derive greater interpersonal benefits, for example, improvements in their peer relationships and heightened trust and comfort in social interaction, than nonfoster youth from mentoring relationships.
Social competencies Youth who are better able to regulate their emotions and who have positive temperaments and other engaging attributes may be primed for higher levels of involvement with their mentors than are peers who lack these attributes. Socially competent youth are held in high regard by teachers and peers, and could therefore be attractive to potential mentors. Youth who are able to bring their social competencies to hobbies or extracurricular activities could connect with adults, whose mentorship could help foster resilience. However, youth who are overwhelmed by social, emotional, or behavioral problems appear to be less likely to experience strong, enduring ties with their mentors and, perhaps consequently reap relatively few benefits from mentoring relationships.
researchers have found that relationships with older adolescents are characterized by lower levels of closeness, heightened risk for termination during any given month, and shorter duration than those with younger youth.
Gender Surprisingly few studies have focused on how gender might shape youth mentoring relationships. Studies examining gender differences in outcomes among program participants have been mixed and few studies have looked at differences in relationship quality or length. Yet, diverse disciplinary perspectives suggest that girls might enter mentoring relationships with different needs and histories, and their relationships might play out in different ways than those of boys. Scholars have observed, for example, that males and females tend to respond differently to helping relationships, with women placing relatively greater value on interpersonal support and intimacy than do men. Research also suggests that boys and girls are typically referred to mentoring programs for different reasons, boys because of a lack of a male role model and girls due to tensions in their relationships with their mothers. Perhaps because of these differences, boys are able to derive greater benefits than girls from short-term mentoring relationships. However, when girls’ mentoring relationships endure, they report even greater levels of relationship closeness and satisfaction than do boys.
Race and ethnicity Also relatively unexplored in the research literature to date is the impact of youth and mentors’ race and ethnicity on the quality and effectiveness of mentoring relationships. Although mentors with similar racial and ethnic backgrounds may be better equipped to understand the social and psychological conflicts of minority youth, evidence suggests that effective relationships can develop despite such differences.
Special needs Mentoring programs serve young people with a diverse array of special needs and considerations, such as being in foster care, having learning or physical disabilities, or having a parent who is incarcerated. Such considerations need not stand in the way of an effective mentoring relationship. Overall, however, research to date has provided little insight into how these characteristics impact mentoring relationships. Screening tools that permit greater specification of baseline risk, strengths, and circumstances of children and families are likely to be particularly helpful in assigning appropriate mentors and fostering positive relationships.
Developmental stage The mentee’s age may also affect the nature and course of a mentoring relationship. For example, whereas early adolescents who are beginning to struggle with identity issues may wish to engage in abstract conversations with their mentors, children whose levels of cognitive sophistication are less advanced may benefit more from structured activities. In addition, adolescents on the brink of adulthood may be less interested in establishing emotional ties with mentors, instead gravitating toward peers and vocational skill-building activities. Older adolescents tend to be more peer-oriented than their younger counterparts and less likely to sustain their involvement in structured mentoring programs. Indeed,
Mentor Characteristics Competencies Close, effective mentoring relationships seem to be facilitated when mentors possess certain skills and attributes. These include prior experience in helping roles or occupations, an ability to demonstrate appreciation of salient socioeconomic and cultural influences in the youth’s life, and a sense of efficacy for being able to mentor young people. Other researchers have noted the importance of shared experiences, difficulties, or disabilities. The ability to model relevant behaviors, such as skills required for job performance in the work setting, appears to be of further
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benefit, as does refraining from actions (e.g., substance use) that may encourage youth to adopt unhealthy behaviors. Also important is mentors’ attunement to the particular needs of their mentee, and an ability to adapt their style to fit them. For example, mentors who are sensitive about how their mentee’s developmental stage might shape his or her preferred activities, and who can adjust their approach accordingly, are likely to be most effective. A working knowledge of the basics of adolescent development would be helpful in this regard.
Age Although research to date has not examined the impact of mentor age on the effectiveness of mentoring relationships, it is possible that age might affect mentors’ commitment to mentoring relationships, time available to devote to such relationships, and vulnerability of early terminations. To this end, programs such as Across Ages have recognized the enormous volunteer potential that exists among retired adults. Particularly in contrast to teenage volunteers, older adults have more time to devote to this pursuit and are ideally positioned to provide the level of personal attention and emotional support that many youth need.
Gender Research to date has also not adequately explored the role of mentor gender in shaping mentoring relationships. Findings from workplace and academic mentoring, however, suggest the likelihood of gender differences. Several studies of workplace mentoring, for example, have shown that male mentors tend to provide more instrumental and career support, whereas female mentorships are often characterized by greater emotional support. Likewise, in academia, female faculty mentors tend to confer greater emotion-focused assistance than their male counterparts.
Race and ethnicity Many programs attempt to match youth with mentors of the same racial or ethnic background. Although theory suggests that same-race matches could be especially beneficial for youth from minority groups, the evidence is mixed. Additional research on racial, ethnic, and cultural variables in matching as well as the effects of providing mentors with cross-cultural training is warranted.
Expectations and vulnerabilities Mentors’ unfulfilled expectations, pragmatic concerns, and frustrations often emerge in the early, vulnerable stages of mentoring relationships. Such experiences can lead to early terminations in the mentoring relationship. Qualitative research has suggested that difficulties often arise from such failings as the misuse of power (e.g., exploitation, political or religious proselytizing), inappropriate boundaries (e.g., breaching confidentiality, improper disclosures), and communication breakdowns (e.g., breaking commitments).
Contextual Factors The likelihood of a child or adolescent forming strong ties with a mentor may be affected by a range of processes in the family, including the encouragement and opportunities that parents provide for the development of such ties. Families characterized
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by sensitivity to others’ ideas and needs and open expression of views are more likely to encourage adolescents to become involved in positive relationships outside the family. Children and adolescents with more supportive parental relationships and higher levels of shared family decision-making have been found to be more likely to report natural mentors. Likewise, parents who actively cultivate connections and channel their children to community-based recreational and social programs also may increase the likelihood that their children will form beneficial relationships with adults beyond the nuclear family. Mentoring programs that reach out to parents tend to have greater success in shaping youth outcomes. Other family-related factors, including stability and mobility, can facilitate or hinder the establishment and maintenance of strong ties. In addition, researchers have observed that extracurricular activities and supportive relationships with adults tend to be more beneficial to adolescents raised in urban poverty than to lower risk youth, who encounter more supportive adults in their everyday lives. Indeed, neighborhood characteristics and norms (i.e., neighborhood effects) can influence the availability of caring, informal adult ties as well as the willingness of adults to genuinely connect with children and adolescents. Changing family and marital patterns, crowded schools, and less cohesive communities dramatically reduce the availability of caring adults in the lives of youth. Thus, although family instability and socioeconomic disadvantage pose challenges to the formation of mentoring relationships, it appears that when these barriers are overcome, youth from backgrounds of environmental risk are especially likely to benefit from mentoring.
Relationship Characteristics Relationship intensity Studies of both informal and formal mentoring (including meta-analyses) have highlighted the importance of relationship intensity, indicated by how often mentors and youth spend time together. Regular contact can lead to greater time spent engaging in beneficial activities, the provision of emotional and instrumental support, and deeper involvement of the adult in the youth’s social network. This involvement, in turn, may enhance the mentee’s feelings of security and attachment in interpersonal relationships. Frequency of contact has also been associated with greater prosocial behaviors and social connectedness.
Relationship duration Relationship duration represents another key determinant of effectiveness. For example, in a reanalysis of the BBBS CBM program, Jean Grossman and Jean Rhodes found that positive effects on youth outcomes became progressively stronger as relationships persisted for longer periods of time. Relative to controls, youth whose relationships terminated within a year appeared to derive the fewest benefits, and those in short matches (i.e., terminating within the first 3–6 months) actually suffered declines in reported levels of feelings of self-worth and perceived scholastic competence. For youth who were in matches that lasted more than a year, however, positive effects were evident on levels of self-worth, perceived social acceptance and scholastic competence, parental relationship quality, school
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value, and levels of both drug and alcohol use. Likewise, other research has shown that mentoring relationship duration is predictive of youth’s ability to achieve goals, and natural relationships that endure for multiple years have the strongest effects.
Relationship quality It is likely that, over time, mentors and youth develop emotional closeness, and that such bonds drive the positive effects of mentoring on mentored youth. Research to date has shown that quality of the mentoring relationship predicts social and academic adjustment, as well as declines in youth aggression. Mentors’ acceptance and attunement, as well as their ability to adapt their approach based on their mentee’s needs, are important indicators of relationship quality and effectiveness. Moreover, relationships that are youth-centered, as opposed to being driven primarily by the interests or expectations of the mentor, have been found to predict greater relationship quality, as well as improvements in youth’s other relationships with adults. A youth-driven approach, however, needs to be balanced with structure and goals. Favorable outcomes are most likely to occur when youth experience both structure and support from their mentors.
conditions under which mentoring relationships are likely to be beneficial. A remaining question is how mentoring relationships impact youth. Based on empirical and theoretical literature, Jean Rhodes has proposed a model that delineates several processes and conditions presumed to be important for understanding the effects of mentoring relationships on youth (see Figure 1). This model suggests that high-quality mentoring relationships exert their effects on academic, behavioral, and psychological outcomes through three interrelated domains of adolescent development: socioemotional development, cognitive development, and identity development. These domains are thought to mutually influence one another, such that improvements in one domain could facilitate improvements in the two others. In addition, the socioemotional benefits of mentoring are assumed to lead to improvements in parental and peer relationships, which in turn influence positive outcomes in a range of other areas. Importantly, this model also accounts for the variables discussed previously that impact the effectiveness of mentoring relationships (youth, mentor and relationship characteristics, and program practices). Available evidence suggests that mentoring does indeed affect the three major components of adolescent development. In the following section, we briefly discuss the theoretical basis and research findings for each developmental domain.
Program Characteristics Programs that offer adequate infrastructure increase the likelihood that relationships can endure difficult periods. In fact, meta-anlayses indicate that program practices that support the mentor and relationship (i.e., training for mentors, offering structured activities for mentors and youth, having high expectations for frequency of contact, and monitoring of overall program implementation) produce stronger positive effects. These practices, which speak to a program’s ability to not only match mentors and youth but also sustain those matches, converge with the beneficial practices identified by other researchers. Unfortunately, moving youth off long wait-lists can sometimes take priority over creating high-quality matches. Even among the growing number of programs with careful recruitment, screening, and matching, a relatively small proportion devote themselves to in-depth training of volunteers or ongoing support to the mentors. Cost, combined with a general reluctance to make demands on volunteers, is the primary obstacle to providing more sustained involvement and infrastructure beyond the initial match. The National Mentoring Organization (MENTOR) has recently updated their set of research-based best practice guidelines, referred to as the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring, which provides standards for recruitment, screening, training, matching, monitoring and support, and closure. These standards represent an important step in identifying key program practices that contribute to positive youth outcomes and in bridging research and practice.
Processes The preceding review of the mentoring literature suggests that mentoring relationships have the potential to benefit youth in a wide range of important areas and sheds light upon the
Socioemotional Development The notion that mentoring relationships can facilitate adolescent socioemotional development has been derived largely from attachment theory. According to attachment theorists, such as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, children construct cognitive representations of relationships through experiences with primary caregivers. Although these representations, or working models, are considered relatively stable over time, they are also thought to be flexible to changing life circumstances, such as engagement in unconditionally supportive relationships. Mentors are thought to be potential secondary attachment figures whose support and security render youth able to achieve social and cognitive capacities and, in addition, ease tensions in youth’s other relationships with adults. Mentoring relationships can therefore lead to shifts in youth’s abilities to form and sustain positive connections to others. In addition, mentors can be models and coaches for how to better regulate negative emotions, thereby fostering improved coping skills. Preliminary research support has emerged for the potential of positive relationships with mentors to strengthen or modify the social–emotional development of youth. Mentoring relationships formed through community- and school-based programs have been linked to improvements in children and adolescents’ perceptions of their parental relationships, including levels of intimacy, communication, and trust. These improvements, in turn, have been found to be associated with positive changes in a wide array of areas such as overall feelings of self-worth, perceived scholastic competence, grades, and substance use.
Cognitive Development Mentoring relationships are also thought to affect a range of cognitive developmental processes. The field of cognitive neuroscience has provided evidence that social relationships
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Mediator Parental-peer relationships c
Social-emotional development
Mentoring relationship
a
b
Mutuality trust empathy
d
f Cognitive development
e f
Positive outcomes (e.g., grades, emotional well-being, behavioral)
Identity development
g g
Interpersonal history, social competencies, developmental stage, duration of mentoring relationship, program practices, family and community context
Moderators Figure 1 Model of youth mentoring (Rhodes, 2005).
interact with the developing brain to shape cognitive capacities, and that several capacities, such as information processing, abstract reasoning, and self-monitoring, continue to undergo improvements during adolescence. Supportive relationships during adolescence are therefore likely to facilitate the development of these abilities. Closely related to this notion is Lev Vygotsky’s concept of the ‘zone of proximal development,’ a mastery level that extends beyond what a child or adolescent can attain when problem solving independently but within the range of what he or she can do while working under adult guidance or with more capable peers. Through their support and guidance, mentors help youth acquire and refine improved thinking skills, as well as exposing them to adult values and alternative perspectives. Research on the role of social support in fostering cognitive development underscores the social nature of learning and, specifically, the potential contributions of adults in mentoring roles. Feelings of closeness with teachers, for example, have been associated with more positive academic adjustment for children and adolescents. In particular, consistent associations have been documented between perceptions of teacher–student relationships and increases in student motivation, academic competence and achievement, school engagement, school value, and behavioral adjustment. Several studies have also revealed improvements in academic outcomes for youth in the context of close and enduring ties with natural and assigned mentors. Qualitative research, for example, suggests that, through mentoring relationships, youth are provided opportunities to improve their cognitive and problem-solving skills.
Identity Development The third major aspect of adolescent development that mentoring is thought to impact is identity development. According to Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory of human development, establishing identity is the major task of adolescence and is often achieved through social relationships. Mentors might assist in such development by representing possible career and educational pathways and personal qualities that adolescents could attain as adults, as well as exposing youth to new people, experiences, and resources through which they could develop abilities that improve their sense of self and elevate their future aspirations. In addition, related to Charles Horton Cooley’s looking glass self and George Hebert Mead’s reflected appraisals, mentors can act as social mirrors to modify youth’s self-perception and shift their conceptions of their current and future identities. Mentors can therefore help inform youth’s current decisions and behavior, improve how they see themselves in relationships, and shape their expectations and goals for the future. The empirical literature to date supports the possibility that mentors can effect change in youth behaviors relating to their identity development. Children and adolescents with natural and volunteer mentors have been found to be less likely to take part in delinquent problem behaviors and more likely to graduate from high school, both of which suggest the presence of a more positive future orientation in the identities of mentored youth. In a study of future perceptions, having a career mentor was associated with a match (as opposed to a gap) between
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adolescents’ aspirations and expectations. However, it should be noted that the direction of the preceding types of linkages is not yet fully established. It is also plausible in this regard, for example, that being prosocial, academically successful, and future oriented increases the likelihood that natural mentors will emerge in the lives of such youth.
settings, and a better integration of research, practice, and policy will better position programs to harness the full potential of youth mentoring.
See also: Cognitive Development; Modes of Intervention; Peer Relations; Resilience; Social Competence; Social Support.
Conclusions Further Reading The enthusiasm for and growth of mentoring programs speaks volumes about the faith our society places in one-toone relationships between vulnerable young people and unrelated but caring adults. And with good cause. The success of human services initiatives often rests on the quality of relationships that are forged between vulnerable youth and caring adults. By putting such relationships at the centerstage, mentoring programs can deliver this healing in full potency. Moreover, as discussed earlier, a growing body of research provides an encouraging base of evidence for the benefits of high-quality mentoring relationships and, by implication, the programs and settings that are able to establish and support these types of relationships. Although much remains to be explored to understand the complexities of mentoring relationships and to determine the circumstances under which mentoring programs make a difference in the lives of youth, at this stage, it is evident that mentoring is, by and large, a modestly effective intervention. In some cases, it may do more harm than good; in others, it can have extraordinarily influential effects. The balance can and should be tipped toward the latter. A deeper understanding of mentoring relationships, combined with high-quality programs, enriched
DuBois DL, Holloway BE, Valentine JC, and Cooper H (2002) Effectiveness of mentoring programs: A meta-analytical review. American Journal of Community Psychology 30: 157–197. DuBois DL, and Karcher MJ. (eds.), Handbook of Youth Mentoring. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Herrera C, Grossman JB, Kauh TJ, Feldman AF, and McMaken J (with Jucovy LZ) (2007) Making a Difference in Schools: The Big Brothers Big Sisters School-based Mentoring Impact Study. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures. Herrera C, Sipe CL, and McClanahan WS (2000) Mentoring School-age Children: Relationship Development in Community-based and School-based Programs. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures (Published in collaboration with MENTOR/ National Mentoring Partnership, Alexandria, VA). Rhodes JE (2002) Stand by Me: The Risks and Rewards of Mentoring Today’s Youth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rhodes JE and Lowe SR (2009) Mentoring in adolescence. In: Lerner RM and Steinberg L (eds.) Handbook of Adolescent Psychology, 3rd edn., vol. 2, pp. 152–190. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Relevant Websites www.acrossages.org – Across Ages Mentoring Program. www.bbbs.org – Big Brothers Big Sisters. www.highscope.org – High Scope Educational Research Foundation. www.mentoring.org – Mentor/National Mentoring Partnership. www.ngycp.org – National Guard Youth Challenge Program.
Glossary Looking glass self: Conceived by Charles Horton Cooley, the concept that sense of self is influenced by interpersonal interactions and imagined perceptions of others. Mentor: An older or more experienced adult or peer who provides support and guidance to a younger prote´ge´. Meta-analysis: A statistical technique that combines the results of many studies. Natural mentor: A mentor who is not assigned through a formal mentoring program, but has naturally come to serve
Introduction Organized approaches to mentoring youth in the United States date back more than a century to reform-oriented initiatives in the juvenile court system, which ultimately gave rise to Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS). Although BBBS remains the largest and most well-known program of its kind, the past few decades have seen a remarkable proliferation of thousands of programs that seek to pair caring, adult volunteers with youth from at-risk backgrounds. An estimated three million youth are in formal one-to-one mentoring relationships in the United States, and funding and growth imperatives continue to fuel program expansion. Even larger numbers of youth report experiencing mentoring relationships outside of these types of programs with adults such as teachers, coaches, neighbors, and extended family. Anecdotal accounts of the protective qualities of mentoring relationships and their life-transforming effects on young people abound in the media. Federal funding for mentoring programs has increased substantially as well, with annual Congressional appropriations of $100 million for mentoring between 2004 and 2008. It is only relatively recently, however, that social and behavioral scientists have focused their attention on a more rigorous examination of mentoring for children and adolescents. Below, we review the highlights of this research; discussing different approaches to youth mentoring and then summarizing the research on 1. the effects of mentoring relationships on adolescent development; 2. factors that predict variation in relationship effectiveness; and 3. the processes through which these relationships exert such effects.
Different Approaches to Youth Mentoring A range of mentoring relationships, from those that develop naturally, to those that are formally created through communityand school-based programs, to those that are a hybrid of natural and formal approaches, fall under the rubric of mentoring.
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a mentoring role in the life of a younger or less experienced individual. Examples of natural mentors are extended family members, teachers, coaches, and neighbors. Reflected appraisals: George Herbert Mead’s concept of how individuals’ ideas about how others see them influence how they see themselves. Zone of proximal development: The space between what a child could learn on his or her own and what he or she could not learn even with the help of a more experienced peer or adult. Coined by psychologist Lev Vygotsky.
Natural Mentors Natural mentoring relationships typically arise within social networks, and are characterized by bonds between older, more experienced adults and younger prote´ge´s. These relationships are typically between youth and extended family members, such as uncles, aunts, grandparents and godparents, as well as neighbors, teachers, afterschool providers, guidance counselors, and church members. Natural mentors provide ongoing guidance, instruction, and encouragement, facilitating the adolescents’ transition into adulthood. Youth appear to derive a range of benefits from natural mentors, including perceptions of greater support, higher optimism, and improved future orientation. Having such natural mentorship is also associated with high school graduation and high expectations about careers. More generally, intergenerational relationships have long been recognized as an important resource in low-income, minority communities. Sociologist Elijah Anderson, for example, has described how respected authority figures in urban communities act as “a kind of guidance counselor and moral cheerleader.” Similarly, social theorist Patricia Hill Collins has noted the protective influence of older African American women, referring to them as “other mothers.” Such mentors often provide guidance, encouragement, and emotional support, promoting social, academic, and vocational outcomes. Mentors may serve as concrete examples of resilience and optimism in the face of adversity, demonstrating qualities and behaviors that young adults might wish to imitate. Natural mentors can also assist youth more directly through their emotional support and by advocating on behalf of youth, helping them establish and make use of connections and resources in their communities. Unfortunately, many youth do not readily find older, supportive adults beyond the boundaries of their household. Shifting marital patterns, overcrowded schools, and loss of community cohesiveness have dramatically reduced the availability of caring adults and restricted their opportunities for informal contact with youth. The social fabric is stretched particularly thin in urban centers where many of the middleclass adults who once served as respected authority figures in
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the community have fled to the suburbs, and far fewer of the adults who remain are willing or able to offer support and guidance to youth outside their families. To address the needs of youth who lack attention from caring adults, people from a wide spectrum of disciplines and interests are turning to volunteer mentoring programs.
Community-Based Mentoring Programs Many mentoring programs are community-based, wherein program personnel match volunteer mentors with at-risk youth. Mentors and youth generally meet on a weekly basis, with each mentor–youth match choosing where and when to meet. Community-based mentoring (CBM) programs typically ask mentors to commit to mentoring for a minimum of 1 year. A prime example of such a program is Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS). Founded in 1904, BBBS organizations now serve thousands of at-risk youth in all 50 states and in 12 countries. In the early 1990s, Public/Private Ventures, a Philadelphia-based research organization, conducted a randomized-controlled trial of BBBS programs in the United States in which youth who received mentoring were compared to those who were on a waitlist. At an 18-month follow-up, youth who had been assigned mentors reported a variety of improvements compared to their waitlisted counterparts. For example, they were less likely to initiate drug or alcohol use, skipped fewer classes, felt greater competence in their academic abilities, and reported improvements in their parental and peer relationships. Notably, however, 6 months later, most of these gains were no longer statistically significant. Discussed in greater detail in a later section, this groundbreaking study has been reanalyzed to determine the characteristics of youth and mentoring relationships that are associated with the greater benefits of mentoring. Another notable CBM program is Across Ages, which is the only mentoring program that has achieved the status of ‘model program’ on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP), an online registry of independently reviewed and rated interventions. Across Ages includes a select group of mentors, adults over the age of 55, who are paired with youth who are deemed at-risk due to economic disadvantage, academic or behavioral problems, and few positive adult role models. The program has expanded to over 30 sites in 17 states and continues to boast relatively low volunteer attrition and match durations that greatly exceed national averages. In addition, randomized controlled studies have found that the program encourages positive behavioral, academic, and psychosocial outcomes. BBBS and Across Ages are just two of the thousands of CBM programs in the United States. Other programs include those that target at-risk youth in general, or that are tailored to specific groups of youth, including juvenile offenders, foster care youth, and many others.
School-Based Mentoring Programs Beyond CBM programs, other mentoring programs are integrated into youth’s schools. In fact, school-based mentoring
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(SBM) is curently the fastest growing form of mentoring in the United States. In SBM programs, mentors meet with youth during the school day or after school in the school building and often provide academic assistance in addition to emotional support, guidance, and companionship. BBBS has expanded their program portfolio to include SBM. Their SBM programs have recently been subject to a rigorous, randomized-controlled evaluation through Public/Private Ventures, conducted by Carla Herrera and her colleagues. In SBM, interactions between youth and mentors typically are confined to the school setting and the 1-year minimum commitment of mentors is shortened to the 9-month school year. Because SBM is linked to the academic calendar, mentoring relationships tend to be less enduring than those forged through CBM. Indeed, the average length of the relationships in the SBM evaluation was just 5.3 months (compared to 11.4 months in the CBM evaluation), and nearly half (48%) of the relationships did not continue into the following school year. Notably, in BBBS SBM evaluation, approximately half of the mentors were high school students mentoring younger students. Overall, findings from the BBBS SBM evaluation were mixed. At the end of the first school year, youth assigned to receive mentoring showed significant improvements in their academic performance, perceived scholastic efficacy, school misconduct, and attendance relative to the control group. These effects did not persist over time, however, and, when youth were reassessed a few months into the following school year, most differences were no longer statistically significant. Again, further research has elucidated the qualities of SBM relationships that tended to yield greater benefits among youth. More recently, Lawrence Bernstein and his colleagues conducted a random-assignment evaluation of the Department of Education’s (ED) Student Mentoring Program. Although this national evaluation was rigorously conducted, the original grant itself imposed few specifications on program practice. There was also a mismatch between the rigorous academic outcomes that ED wanted measured, and what can realistically be expected from mentoring programs. Like BBBS SBM programs, the average length of relationship was short, specifically, 5.8 months or approximately 20–25 h of mentoring over the course of the school-year. Moreover, a full 35% of the control group students received mentoring, either from the program or elsewhere in the community, while 17% of the treatment group students never met with a mentor. Finally, in the context of these problems, relatively stringent post hoc analyses were applied which masked several small, but significant group effects emerging from the study. Although subgroup analyses of these data hinted at variability in effects among different groups of youth, the overall evaluation yielded no significant impacts for the Student Mentoring Program. The $50 million federal allocation for this program was recently cut. Recently, Karen Randolph and Jeanette Johnson conducted a meta-analysis of eight SBM programs. They found that SBM programs, overall, have beneficial effects on youth. Specifically, they found youth in SBM had increased connectedness in schools, families, and communities. There was variation in the effectiveness of SBM, however, related to qualities of the mentoring relationships.
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Integration of Mentoring Within Other Youth Services Just as mentoring programs are increasingly integrated into schools, they are also, albeit to a lesser degree, being integrated into other programs that serve youth, including after-school programs, summer camps, competitive sports teams, church youth groups, and other positive youth development programs. These additional contexts represent rich opportunities for the formation of strong intergenerational ties. Adults in these settings are often afforded ongoing opportunities to engage youth in the sorts of informal conversations and enjoyable activities that can give rise to close bonds. In addition to informal relationships forged through faith-based communities, a large number of formal mentoring programs are also faith-based, either taking place in or sponsored by a religious organization. Religious communities often provide ongoing encouragement and mentoring through youth outreach and services. Since social policies in general, and mentoring programs in particular, often do not reach or support the most severely disadvantaged youth, churches often play a critical supportive role. This is particularly true in urban, Black churches, which tend to be socially active in their communities and participate in a wide range of community programs. In addition, vulnerable youth often come in contact with publicly funded service systems such as welfare, juvenile justice, housing, and teen-parenting programs. Adolescents entering these systems are less likely than others to gain access to mentoring or other youth development programs. Although many such youth would benefit from the support of caring adults, these systems rarely capitalize on this potential. The programs are often inaccessible, disconnected from one another, and staffed with professionals who are burdened with large caseloads. With more deliberate planning, such settings could be made more responsive to the needs of youth. One such example is the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration Mentor Program, which matches adult volunteers with youth serving time in Washington State Correction Institutions. This program was found to decrease recidivism among mentored youth, relative to a control group, after 12 months. These results, however, did not persist into 24- and 36-month follow-up assessments.
Youth-Initiated Mentoring Programs A relatively novel approach to establishing mentoring relationships is Youth-Initiated Mentoring (YIM). In such programs, youth nominate mentors from people in their existing social network (e.g., teachers, neighbors) who are then trained to be mentors. One such example is the National Guard Youth Challenge Program. This program provides youth and their families with support for how to identify potential mentors. After a mentor is nominated, the program provides training in mentorship and caseworkers stay in contact with mentors throughout the match. This approach to mentoring has the potential to blend the flexibility of natural mentoring with the structure and evidence-based practice of more formalized approaches. By relying on youth-recruited mentors, programs avoid long waitlists, a major obstacle to serving youth in traditional, assigned mentoring programs. Moreover, because the volunteers are
typically embedded in the youth’s natural networks, they are potentially more committed to being a mentor, more attuned to the constraints, opportunities, and social ecologies of those settings, and more likely to endure in their mentoring role. In addition, particularly for older youth who may not have had a lot of positive experiences with adults in the past, youth may be more likely to trust a mentor whom they chose and with whom they already have a relationship. Finally, by teaching high-risk youth strategies for identifying, recruiting, and drawing on the support of caring adults in their networks, YIM programs confer valuable interpersonal skills that can transfer to other contexts in the future. Initial research suggests that allowing youth a role in choosing their mentor may result in more effective mentoring relationships.
Overall Effectiveness of Youth Mentoring It is clear that several forms of mentoring exist in the United States, and that mentoring relationships have great potential to benefit at-risk youth. How effective are these programs, as a whole, in facilitating positive outcomes? Researchers have attempted to synthesize the literature on youth mentoring through two methods: literature reviews and meta-analysis.
Review Articles Over the past decade, there have been several literature reviews synthesizing empirical research on youth mentoring, both in general and for particular groups (e.g., juvenile offenders, youth with special needs). Although these reviews can be helpful to researchers and practitioners, they often draw sharply different conclusions about the effectiveness of mentoring. Discrepancies among reviews often stem from the studies that are considered. Reviews are only as strong as the research and evaluations on which they stake their claims and can vary considerably in their methodological rigor, for example, in the inclusion criteria used and how much they are weighted toward peer-reviewed studies. In addition, authors’ biases, whether intentional or not, can affect how evidence is weighed. Two sources in particular, namely, the evaluation of BBBS CBM programs and a metaanalysis conducted in 2002 by psychologist David DuBois and colleagues, have been both influential and interpreted in an overly positive light. Reviews of the mentoring literature have often cited DuBois’ meta-analysis of 55 evaluations. This study represents the most scientifically rigorous verdict on the effectiveness of CBM. The researchers began by identifying all of the relevant studies on the topic. To be included in the analyses, studies had to meet several criteria. First, the evaluated program needed to include a one-to-one relationship in which an older, more experienced mentor was paired with a younger (under 19 years old) mentee. Second, the study had to examine empirically the effects of participation in a mentoring program, by preprogram versus postprogram comparisons of the same group of youth, or by comparisons between one group of youth receiving mentoring and another group not receiving mentoring. After identifying relevant studies, the researchers
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summarized the results of each study and then calculated effect sizes across the entire group of studies. The favorable effects of mentoring programs were found to hold true across relatively diverse types of program samples, including programs in which mentoring was provided alone or in conjunction with other services. Positive effects were found both in programs that had general goals and in those with more focused goals, and held up for youth of varying backgrounds and demographic characteristics. Among the small number of studies that included follow-up assessments, the benefits of mentoring appeared to extend a year or more beyond the end of a youth’s participation in the program. However, DuBois and colleagues note that the magnitude of these effects on the average youth participating in a mentoring program was quite modest. Other review articles have put heavy weight on the landmark study of BBBS CBM programs. In this study, Public/Private Ventures’ evaluators, Jean Grossman and Joseph Tierney, traced the experiences of youth given access to the program, as well as a control group, over a period of 18 months. Several statistically significant differences in behavioral and academic functioning between the mentored group and the control were detected at a 1-year follow-up. These differences have been widely cited in reviews of mentoring research as evidence that mentoring relationships are highly effective. When assessed more carefully, however, these claims prove problematic. In particular, the effect size estimates were small, indicating that mentoring had little impact on youth outcomes. In addition, reviews giving heavy weight to the BBBS study imply that youth mentoring is a highly costeffective intervention. In fact, findings have shown that this claim is likely exaggerated and that, taking into account taxpayer and other costs, the benefits exceed the costs by very small margins (approximately $1.01 of benefit to $1.00 of cost). Despite these somewhat discouraging trends, the group differences that have been uncovered in national evaluations do give grounds for cautious optimism about the potential viability of mentoring interventions. In the light of the vast continuum in the quality and duration that existed in the mentoring relationships, it would have been unrealistic to expect a relatively loosely structured social program to produce dramatic, across-the-board reversals of the negative trajectories that are typical of adolescence. Indeed, matches vary considerably in their effectiveness, depending on the characteristics of the individuals involved and the quality of the relationships they form, in ways that affect outcomes. When all relationships are combined, as was the case in the analyses conducted for national evaluations, positive outcomes are easily masked by the neutral and even negative outcomes associated with less effective mentoring relationships. The challenge is to identify those program inputs and factors that can facilitate the formation of close, enduring, and, ultimately, effective mentor– youth ties, a task for which meta-analysis is well suited.
Meta-Analysis A series of meta-analyses have permitted researchers to empirically summarize the results of mentoring across multiple studies and to statistically determine the strength of program-related effects. Comparisons across studies have revealed important
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patterns and gaps in the literature. Meta-analysis permits researchers to empirically summarize results on a single topic across multiple studies and to statistically determine the strength of program-related effects. Notably, meta-analyses are not without problems. For example, the method does not typically control for the design flaws of the studies that are included, and researchers’ ability to code studies on various dimensions. Nonetheless, meta-analysis does have several advantages. Comparisons across studies can reveal important patterns and gaps in the literature, sources of bias can be controlled, and statistical power is increased when samples are combined. The most comprehensive meta-analysis on youth mentoring to date is the aforementioned study of 55 evaluations by David DuBois and colleagues. As noted earlier, the magnitude of these effects of mentoring relationships on the average youth was quite modest, particularly in comparison to the effect sizes that have been found in meta-analyses of other prevention programs for children and adolescents. But, importantly, while the overall effect size of mentoring programs was modest, substantial variation in the effectiveness of different programs emerged across these studies. Notably, more structured programs, in which there were clear expectations, a focus on instrumental goals, and the ongoing support to volunteer mentors, yielded the strongest effects. More recently, psychologist Patrick Tolan and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 31 youth mentoring programs. Focusing on a more limited array of outcomes, the researchers found moderate effects of youth mentoring on delinquent and aggressive outcomes, and smaller effects for drug use and academic outcomes. An additional meta-analysis by Darrick Jolliffe and David Farrington focused on the effects of youth mentoring on recidivism among juvenile offenders. Their analyses, which were based on 18 evaluations, revealed only a very small impact. However, significant variation emerged across studies, related to characteristics of the mentoring programs and mentoring relationships within them. Looking at a broader range of outcomes, another recent meta-analysis by Lillian Eby and colleagues examined the effects of 40 youth mentoring evaluations, comparing them to 53 adult workplace mentoring and 23 college-level academic mentoring evaluations. Again, the effect sizes of youth mentoring were generally small, with mentoring more highly related to some outcomes (school attitudes) than others (psychological distress), and youth mentoring showing a smaller impact on outcomes than the other two forms of mentoring.
Predicting Variation If mentoring relationships, overall, have only small effects on youth development and are barely cost effective, why are they considered to have major potential in improving the lives of adolescents? Fortunately, in line with public perceptions, some mentoring relationships are extremely effective and secondary analyses of large, national data sets have elucidated factors that impact their effectiveness. These factors can be roughly divided into the following categories: youth characteristics, mentor characteristics, mentoring relationship characteristics, and program practices.
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Youth Characteristics Interpersonal history Children and adolescents who have enjoyed healthy relationships with their parents may more easily be drawn to adults as role models and confidants. In such cases, often found among youth with natural mentors, the relationship may focus more on the acquisition of skills and the advancement of critical thinking than on emotional issues. Along these lines, youth who have positive relationships with their parents, particularly their mothers, have been found to reap more benefits from their mentoring relationships. This suggests that mentors may not entirely compensate for insecure family bonds, and instead might be beneficial as long as there is already a minimum level of support from at least one parent. However, youth who have experienced unsatisfactory or difficult parental ties may initially resist the overtures of a caring adult, but over time develop more intense bonds with their mentors that help to satisfy their social and emotional needs. Mentoring relationships also may serve to compensate for absent relationships. Immigrant youths, for example, many of whom have suffered long separations from their parents, may gravitate to mentors for compensatory emotional support. Mentors may provide these youth with a safe haven for learning new cultural norms and practices, as well as with information that is vital to success in school. Youth in foster homes, including those who have suffered child abuse and neglect, have also been found to derive greater interpersonal benefits, for example, improvements in their peer relationships and heightened trust and comfort in social interaction, than nonfoster youth from mentoring relationships.
Social competencies Youth who are better able to regulate their emotions and who have positive temperaments and other engaging attributes may be primed for higher levels of involvement with their mentors than are peers who lack these attributes. Socially competent youth are held in high regard by teachers and peers, and could therefore be attractive to potential mentors. Youth who are able to bring their social competencies to hobbies or extracurricular activities could connect with adults, whose mentorship could help foster resilience. However, youth who are overwhelmed by social, emotional, or behavioral problems appear to be less likely to experience strong, enduring ties with their mentors and, perhaps consequently reap relatively few benefits from mentoring relationships.
researchers have found that relationships with older adolescents are characterized by lower levels of closeness, heightened risk for termination during any given month, and shorter duration than those with younger youth.
Gender Surprisingly few studies have focused on how gender might shape youth mentoring relationships. Studies examining gender differences in outcomes among program participants have been mixed and few studies have looked at differences in relationship quality or length. Yet, diverse disciplinary perspectives suggest that girls might enter mentoring relationships with different needs and histories, and their relationships might play out in different ways than those of boys. Scholars have observed, for example, that males and females tend to respond differently to helping relationships, with women placing relatively greater value on interpersonal support and intimacy than do men. Research also suggests that boys and girls are typically referred to mentoring programs for different reasons, boys because of a lack of a male role model and girls due to tensions in their relationships with their mothers. Perhaps because of these differences, boys are able to derive greater benefits than girls from short-term mentoring relationships. However, when girls’ mentoring relationships endure, they report even greater levels of relationship closeness and satisfaction than do boys.
Race and ethnicity Also relatively unexplored in the research literature to date is the impact of youth and mentors’ race and ethnicity on the quality and effectiveness of mentoring relationships. Although mentors with similar racial and ethnic backgrounds may be better equipped to understand the social and psychological conflicts of minority youth, evidence suggests that effective relationships can develop despite such differences.
Special needs Mentoring programs serve young people with a diverse array of special needs and considerations, such as being in foster care, having learning or physical disabilities, or having a parent who is incarcerated. Such considerations need not stand in the way of an effective mentoring relationship. Overall, however, research to date has provided little insight into how these characteristics impact mentoring relationships. Screening tools that permit greater specification of baseline risk, strengths, and circumstances of children and families are likely to be particularly helpful in assigning appropriate mentors and fostering positive relationships.
Developmental stage The mentee’s age may also affect the nature and course of a mentoring relationship. For example, whereas early adolescents who are beginning to struggle with identity issues may wish to engage in abstract conversations with their mentors, children whose levels of cognitive sophistication are less advanced may benefit more from structured activities. In addition, adolescents on the brink of adulthood may be less interested in establishing emotional ties with mentors, instead gravitating toward peers and vocational skill-building activities. Older adolescents tend to be more peer-oriented than their younger counterparts and less likely to sustain their involvement in structured mentoring programs. Indeed,
Mentor Characteristics Competencies Close, effective mentoring relationships seem to be facilitated when mentors possess certain skills and attributes. These include prior experience in helping roles or occupations, an ability to demonstrate appreciation of salient socioeconomic and cultural influences in the youth’s life, and a sense of efficacy for being able to mentor young people. Other researchers have noted the importance of shared experiences, difficulties, or disabilities. The ability to model relevant behaviors, such as skills required for job performance in the work setting, appears to be of further
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benefit, as does refraining from actions (e.g., substance use) that may encourage youth to adopt unhealthy behaviors. Also important is mentors’ attunement to the particular needs of their mentee, and an ability to adapt their style to fit them. For example, mentors who are sensitive about how their mentee’s developmental stage might shape his or her preferred activities, and who can adjust their approach accordingly, are likely to be most effective. A working knowledge of the basics of adolescent development would be helpful in this regard.
Age Although research to date has not examined the impact of mentor age on the effectiveness of mentoring relationships, it is possible that age might affect mentors’ commitment to mentoring relationships, time available to devote to such relationships, and vulnerability of early terminations. To this end, programs such as Across Ages have recognized the enormous volunteer potential that exists among retired adults. Particularly in contrast to teenage volunteers, older adults have more time to devote to this pursuit and are ideally positioned to provide the level of personal attention and emotional support that many youth need.
Gender Research to date has also not adequately explored the role of mentor gender in shaping mentoring relationships. Findings from workplace and academic mentoring, however, suggest the likelihood of gender differences. Several studies of workplace mentoring, for example, have shown that male mentors tend to provide more instrumental and career support, whereas female mentorships are often characterized by greater emotional support. Likewise, in academia, female faculty mentors tend to confer greater emotion-focused assistance than their male counterparts.
Race and ethnicity Many programs attempt to match youth with mentors of the same racial or ethnic background. Although theory suggests that same-race matches could be especially beneficial for youth from minority groups, the evidence is mixed. Additional research on racial, ethnic, and cultural variables in matching as well as the effects of providing mentors with cross-cultural training is warranted.
Expectations and vulnerabilities Mentors’ unfulfilled expectations, pragmatic concerns, and frustrations often emerge in the early, vulnerable stages of mentoring relationships. Such experiences can lead to early terminations in the mentoring relationship. Qualitative research has suggested that difficulties often arise from such failings as the misuse of power (e.g., exploitation, political or religious proselytizing), inappropriate boundaries (e.g., breaching confidentiality, improper disclosures), and communication breakdowns (e.g., breaking commitments).
Contextual Factors The likelihood of a child or adolescent forming strong ties with a mentor may be affected by a range of processes in the family, including the encouragement and opportunities that parents provide for the development of such ties. Families characterized
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by sensitivity to others’ ideas and needs and open expression of views are more likely to encourage adolescents to become involved in positive relationships outside the family. Children and adolescents with more supportive parental relationships and higher levels of shared family decision-making have been found to be more likely to report natural mentors. Likewise, parents who actively cultivate connections and channel their children to community-based recreational and social programs also may increase the likelihood that their children will form beneficial relationships with adults beyond the nuclear family. Mentoring programs that reach out to parents tend to have greater success in shaping youth outcomes. Other family-related factors, including stability and mobility, can facilitate or hinder the establishment and maintenance of strong ties. In addition, researchers have observed that extracurricular activities and supportive relationships with adults tend to be more beneficial to adolescents raised in urban poverty than to lower risk youth, who encounter more supportive adults in their everyday lives. Indeed, neighborhood characteristics and norms (i.e., neighborhood effects) can influence the availability of caring, informal adult ties as well as the willingness of adults to genuinely connect with children and adolescents. Changing family and marital patterns, crowded schools, and less cohesive communities dramatically reduce the availability of caring adults in the lives of youth. Thus, although family instability and socioeconomic disadvantage pose challenges to the formation of mentoring relationships, it appears that when these barriers are overcome, youth from backgrounds of environmental risk are especially likely to benefit from mentoring.
Relationship Characteristics Relationship intensity Studies of both informal and formal mentoring (including meta-analyses) have highlighted the importance of relationship intensity, indicated by how often mentors and youth spend time together. Regular contact can lead to greater time spent engaging in beneficial activities, the provision of emotional and instrumental support, and deeper involvement of the adult in the youth’s social network. This involvement, in turn, may enhance the mentee’s feelings of security and attachment in interpersonal relationships. Frequency of contact has also been associated with greater prosocial behaviors and social connectedness.
Relationship duration Relationship duration represents another key determinant of effectiveness. For example, in a reanalysis of the BBBS CBM program, Jean Grossman and Jean Rhodes found that positive effects on youth outcomes became progressively stronger as relationships persisted for longer periods of time. Relative to controls, youth whose relationships terminated within a year appeared to derive the fewest benefits, and those in short matches (i.e., terminating within the first 3–6 months) actually suffered declines in reported levels of feelings of self-worth and perceived scholastic competence. For youth who were in matches that lasted more than a year, however, positive effects were evident on levels of self-worth, perceived social acceptance and scholastic competence, parental relationship quality, school
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value, and levels of both drug and alcohol use. Likewise, other research has shown that mentoring relationship duration is predictive of youth’s ability to achieve goals, and natural relationships that endure for multiple years have the strongest effects.
Relationship quality It is likely that, over time, mentors and youth develop emotional closeness, and that such bonds drive the positive effects of mentoring on mentored youth. Research to date has shown that quality of the mentoring relationship predicts social and academic adjustment, as well as declines in youth aggression. Mentors’ acceptance and attunement, as well as their ability to adapt their approach based on their mentee’s needs, are important indicators of relationship quality and effectiveness. Moreover, relationships that are youth-centered, as opposed to being driven primarily by the interests or expectations of the mentor, have been found to predict greater relationship quality, as well as improvements in youth’s other relationships with adults. A youth-driven approach, however, needs to be balanced with structure and goals. Favorable outcomes are most likely to occur when youth experience both structure and support from their mentors.
conditions under which mentoring relationships are likely to be beneficial. A remaining question is how mentoring relationships impact youth. Based on empirical and theoretical literature, Jean Rhodes has proposed a model that delineates several processes and conditions presumed to be important for understanding the effects of mentoring relationships on youth (see Figure 1). This model suggests that high-quality mentoring relationships exert their effects on academic, behavioral, and psychological outcomes through three interrelated domains of adolescent development: socioemotional development, cognitive development, and identity development. These domains are thought to mutually influence one another, such that improvements in one domain could facilitate improvements in the two others. In addition, the socioemotional benefits of mentoring are assumed to lead to improvements in parental and peer relationships, which in turn influence positive outcomes in a range of other areas. Importantly, this model also accounts for the variables discussed previously that impact the effectiveness of mentoring relationships (youth, mentor and relationship characteristics, and program practices). Available evidence suggests that mentoring does indeed affect the three major components of adolescent development. In the following section, we briefly discuss the theoretical basis and research findings for each developmental domain.
Program Characteristics Programs that offer adequate infrastructure increase the likelihood that relationships can endure difficult periods. In fact, meta-anlayses indicate that program practices that support the mentor and relationship (i.e., training for mentors, offering structured activities for mentors and youth, having high expectations for frequency of contact, and monitoring of overall program implementation) produce stronger positive effects. These practices, which speak to a program’s ability to not only match mentors and youth but also sustain those matches, converge with the beneficial practices identified by other researchers. Unfortunately, moving youth off long wait-lists can sometimes take priority over creating high-quality matches. Even among the growing number of programs with careful recruitment, screening, and matching, a relatively small proportion devote themselves to in-depth training of volunteers or ongoing support to the mentors. Cost, combined with a general reluctance to make demands on volunteers, is the primary obstacle to providing more sustained involvement and infrastructure beyond the initial match. The National Mentoring Organization (MENTOR) has recently updated their set of research-based best practice guidelines, referred to as the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring, which provides standards for recruitment, screening, training, matching, monitoring and support, and closure. These standards represent an important step in identifying key program practices that contribute to positive youth outcomes and in bridging research and practice.
Processes The preceding review of the mentoring literature suggests that mentoring relationships have the potential to benefit youth in a wide range of important areas and sheds light upon the
Socioemotional Development The notion that mentoring relationships can facilitate adolescent socioemotional development has been derived largely from attachment theory. According to attachment theorists, such as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, children construct cognitive representations of relationships through experiences with primary caregivers. Although these representations, or working models, are considered relatively stable over time, they are also thought to be flexible to changing life circumstances, such as engagement in unconditionally supportive relationships. Mentors are thought to be potential secondary attachment figures whose support and security render youth able to achieve social and cognitive capacities and, in addition, ease tensions in youth’s other relationships with adults. Mentoring relationships can therefore lead to shifts in youth’s abilities to form and sustain positive connections to others. In addition, mentors can be models and coaches for how to better regulate negative emotions, thereby fostering improved coping skills. Preliminary research support has emerged for the potential of positive relationships with mentors to strengthen or modify the social–emotional development of youth. Mentoring relationships formed through community- and school-based programs have been linked to improvements in children and adolescents’ perceptions of their parental relationships, including levels of intimacy, communication, and trust. These improvements, in turn, have been found to be associated with positive changes in a wide array of areas such as overall feelings of self-worth, perceived scholastic competence, grades, and substance use.
Cognitive Development Mentoring relationships are also thought to affect a range of cognitive developmental processes. The field of cognitive neuroscience has provided evidence that social relationships
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Mediator Parental-peer relationships c
Social-emotional development
Mentoring relationship
a
b
Mutuality trust empathy
d
f Cognitive development
e f
Positive outcomes (e.g., grades, emotional well-being, behavioral)
Identity development
g g
Interpersonal history, social competencies, developmental stage, duration of mentoring relationship, program practices, family and community context
Moderators Figure 1 Model of youth mentoring (Rhodes, 2005).
interact with the developing brain to shape cognitive capacities, and that several capacities, such as information processing, abstract reasoning, and self-monitoring, continue to undergo improvements during adolescence. Supportive relationships during adolescence are therefore likely to facilitate the development of these abilities. Closely related to this notion is Lev Vygotsky’s concept of the ‘zone of proximal development,’ a mastery level that extends beyond what a child or adolescent can attain when problem solving independently but within the range of what he or she can do while working under adult guidance or with more capable peers. Through their support and guidance, mentors help youth acquire and refine improved thinking skills, as well as exposing them to adult values and alternative perspectives. Research on the role of social support in fostering cognitive development underscores the social nature of learning and, specifically, the potential contributions of adults in mentoring roles. Feelings of closeness with teachers, for example, have been associated with more positive academic adjustment for children and adolescents. In particular, consistent associations have been documented between perceptions of teacher–student relationships and increases in student motivation, academic competence and achievement, school engagement, school value, and behavioral adjustment. Several studies have also revealed improvements in academic outcomes for youth in the context of close and enduring ties with natural and assigned mentors. Qualitative research, for example, suggests that, through mentoring relationships, youth are provided opportunities to improve their cognitive and problem-solving skills.
Identity Development The third major aspect of adolescent development that mentoring is thought to impact is identity development. According to Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory of human development, establishing identity is the major task of adolescence and is often achieved through social relationships. Mentors might assist in such development by representing possible career and educational pathways and personal qualities that adolescents could attain as adults, as well as exposing youth to new people, experiences, and resources through which they could develop abilities that improve their sense of self and elevate their future aspirations. In addition, related to Charles Horton Cooley’s looking glass self and George Hebert Mead’s reflected appraisals, mentors can act as social mirrors to modify youth’s self-perception and shift their conceptions of their current and future identities. Mentors can therefore help inform youth’s current decisions and behavior, improve how they see themselves in relationships, and shape their expectations and goals for the future. The empirical literature to date supports the possibility that mentors can effect change in youth behaviors relating to their identity development. Children and adolescents with natural and volunteer mentors have been found to be less likely to take part in delinquent problem behaviors and more likely to graduate from high school, both of which suggest the presence of a more positive future orientation in the identities of mentored youth. In a study of future perceptions, having a career mentor was associated with a match (as opposed to a gap) between
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adolescents’ aspirations and expectations. However, it should be noted that the direction of the preceding types of linkages is not yet fully established. It is also plausible in this regard, for example, that being prosocial, academically successful, and future oriented increases the likelihood that natural mentors will emerge in the lives of such youth.
settings, and a better integration of research, practice, and policy will better position programs to harness the full potential of youth mentoring.
See also: Cognitive Development; Modes of Intervention; Peer Relations; Resilience; Social Competence; Social Support.
Conclusions Further Reading The enthusiasm for and growth of mentoring programs speaks volumes about the faith our society places in one-toone relationships between vulnerable young people and unrelated but caring adults. And with good cause. The success of human services initiatives often rests on the quality of relationships that are forged between vulnerable youth and caring adults. By putting such relationships at the centerstage, mentoring programs can deliver this healing in full potency. Moreover, as discussed earlier, a growing body of research provides an encouraging base of evidence for the benefits of high-quality mentoring relationships and, by implication, the programs and settings that are able to establish and support these types of relationships. Although much remains to be explored to understand the complexities of mentoring relationships and to determine the circumstances under which mentoring programs make a difference in the lives of youth, at this stage, it is evident that mentoring is, by and large, a modestly effective intervention. In some cases, it may do more harm than good; in others, it can have extraordinarily influential effects. The balance can and should be tipped toward the latter. A deeper understanding of mentoring relationships, combined with high-quality programs, enriched
DuBois DL, Holloway BE, Valentine JC, and Cooper H (2002) Effectiveness of mentoring programs: A meta-analytical review. American Journal of Community Psychology 30: 157–197. DuBois DL, and Karcher MJ. (eds.), Handbook of Youth Mentoring. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Herrera C, Grossman JB, Kauh TJ, Feldman AF, and McMaken J (with Jucovy LZ) (2007) Making a Difference in Schools: The Big Brothers Big Sisters School-based Mentoring Impact Study. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures. Herrera C, Sipe CL, and McClanahan WS (2000) Mentoring School-age Children: Relationship Development in Community-based and School-based Programs. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures (Published in collaboration with MENTOR/ National Mentoring Partnership, Alexandria, VA). Rhodes JE (2002) Stand by Me: The Risks and Rewards of Mentoring Today’s Youth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rhodes JE and Lowe SR (2009) Mentoring in adolescence. In: Lerner RM and Steinberg L (eds.) Handbook of Adolescent Psychology, 3rd edn., vol. 2, pp. 152–190. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Relevant Websites www.acrossages.org – Across Ages Mentoring Program. www.bbbs.org – Big Brothers Big Sisters. www.highscope.org – High Scope Educational Research Foundation. www.mentoring.org – Mentor/National Mentoring Partnership. www.ngycp.org – National Guard Youth Challenge Program.