The Role of a Mentor as an Individuals Transition from Child to Adult: Concept and Processes of Mentoring - Research Paper Example

There is an increased use of mentoring in student as well as teacher education and in many other fields all over the world (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIII). Education, management, teaching, healthcare, and professional development of “disadvantaged young people” are to name a few (Colley, 2003, p.1). The concise Oxford English dictionary (2009) has defined the word, mentor, as “an experienced and trusted adviser; an experienced person in an institution who trains and counsels new employees or students; origin- from the Greek Mentor, the name of the adviser of the young Telemachus in Homer’s Odyssey.” Telemachus, a Greek mythical character who was the son of the King, Odysseus, was entrusted with a mentor in his infancy, as the Trojan War raged on, keeping Odysseus busy with it (Barondess, 1995, p.3). Daniel J. Levinson (1986) can be credited with acknowledging the role of mentoring in the modern sense through research as he studied biographies of forty people to show that mentoring in early adulthood had a great positive role (93). The role of mentor as a “transitional figure” in the process of an individual’s transition from child to adult, is stressed by Levinson (1986, p.99-100). The origins of mentoring can also be traced back to the practice where students of teaching profession used to undertake teaching practice under the supervision of senior teachers (Cullingford, 2006, p.2). In general, mentoring is a notion by which “a more experienced individual (the mentor) works wth a less experienced individual (the protegee or Mentee)” (Welsh, 2004, p.13). Though this positive role of a mentor is widely accepted, there have been doubts raised about this positive ness as against the complexities involved. This is why Colley (2003) has said, “on closer examination, we find a set of contradictions at the heart of mentoring” (p.1). The major aspect of mentoring that demands further clarification is what could be the real nature of the relationship between the mentor and the mentee, which is necessarily a “one-to-one” relationship (Colley, 2003, p.1). Two major negative sides of mentoring as identified by Colley (2003) are, the pressure on mentees to perform as per the expected outcome, and the pressure on mentors to function as perfection personified (p.2). Kathy Kram and Monica Higgins (2008) have written the following lines that express most of the concerns being raised about the profession of mentor in a modern context: How can one teacher know enough to help you keep up with rapidly changing technology, as well as navigate the challenges of globalisation, a multicultural workforce and team based decision-making? Even people who have served as mentors often need help staying abreast of all these changes. It is amidst these favourable and not so favourable views on the positive effects of mentoring that the question, ‘does mentoring have a positive affect on attendance in a secondary school?’ is to be pondered. Educationists have been suggesting that mentoring, as a process that is “natural and central to the learning”, needs to replace teaching, as it is carried out in the conventional school ambience (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIV). The basic concept of mentoring in ideal settings can be explained as “finding the right people, sympethetic, open minded, and with the emotional intelligence to present insights into the needs of others” (Cullingford, 2006, p.XV). One definition of a learning mentor's job is “to provide support and guidance to children, young people and those engaged with them, by removing barriers to learning in order to promote effective participation, enhance individual learning, raise aspirations and achieve full potential” (RBKC Professional Frameworks, 2011). Cullingford (2006) has opined that the mentor has three roles to fulfill simultaneously- the role of “the teacher […] the sage […] and […] the advisor” (Cullingford, 2006, p.3). It is also added that all these three roles finally “are about the central issues of power and control” (Cullingford, 2006, p.3). The “different typologies” through which the concept of mentoring has evolved are, “the apprenticeship model, copying a good or bad example, […] the competency model, a systematic training [model], […] [and the] reflective practitioner model (Cullingford, 2006, p.4). The progression in this evolution has been towards “the ultimate autonomy of the mentee” (Cullingford, 2006, p.4). It was when Labour Party came to power in UK in 1997 that mentoring became an inevitable part of “social inclusion” policies (Colley, 2003, p.2). As universities underwent disenfranchisement and schools were entrusted solely with the training of the students, mentoring began to occupy centre-stage (Cullingford, 2006, p.5). The greater involvement that industry and business commanded in the education sector was also an influential factor (Cullingford, 2006, p.5). The Dalston Youth Project started by a charitable organization in the 1990s in London was the first mentoring project of UK (Robinson and Crow, 2009, p.146). Later on in 1998, when the Crime and Disorder Act was passed, the Youth Justice Board established under it took up mentoring projects on a large scale (Robinson and Crow, 2009, p.146). The Board funded eighty projects during a period of two years and more than 5000 youths became the beneficiaries (Robinson and Crow, 2009, p.146). Another early example has been the “Excellence in Cities initiative” (Cullingford, 2006, p.6). The British government had launched Excellence in Cities in 1999 to improve the qualitative learning outcomes in the “inner cities” (Cruddas and Cruddas, 2005, p.15). The programme envisaged “to have high expectations of every individual”, to enhance “diversity of provision”, to network schools “collaboratively” in the process of learning and to provide more “opportunity and enhance equality” (Cruddas and Cruddas, 2005, p.15-16). In its early stages, the programme concentrated in London's selected semi-urban secondary schools but later on successful reviews, spread across England including primary schools as well (Cruddas and Cruddas, 2005, p.16). The organizations that work in the area of mentoring in UK include, Association for Coaching, British Psychological Society Special Group in Coaching Psychology, European Mentoring and Coaching Council, The Eastern Mentoring Forum, and International Coaching Federation (Law, Ireland and Hussain, 2007, p.4). Now it is a fact that there is an ever-expanding “mentoring market” in UK (Law, Ireland and Hussain, 2007, p.9). The average turnover of the organizations and firms that provide mentoring and coaching services to students amount to eight million dollars, as per the figures of 2004 (Law, Ireland and Hussain, 2007, p.9). Along with this commercialisation, concerns have been raised about the effectiveness of mentoring as never before (DuBois, Holloway, Valentine and Cooper, 2002). DuBois, Holloway, Valentine and Cooper (2002) have conducted a study on the effectiveness of mentoring programmes for youth and concluded that there was only a “modest or small benefit” involved (p.157). Some other studies have suggested that mentoring can help reduce antisocial behaviour in children (Roberts et al., 2004, p.514). It has also been found that mentoring has a positive impact when it is clubbed with other “supporting services” (DuBois, Holloway, Valentine and Cooper, 2002). The latest trends in mentoring have put forth alternatives to the adult-youth model of mentor-mentee relationship by replacing it with a peer-relationship of mentoring (Kram and Isabell, 1985). This has been found to be useful more in adults for their career development than in young students (Kram and Isabell, 1985). Similarly, there are many gray areas in the concept of mentoring that go unanswered yet. What form of mentoring and in which context, is most effective, remains a question still to be investigated in detail (Roberts et al., 2004, p.512). Yet, the official trend of supporting mentoring projects continues in England (Roberts et al., 2004, p.513). New concepts like “identity-based mentoring” and “group mentoring” have gained ground, their beneficial influence being proven by many studies (Boyer et al., 2010; Ragins, 2012; Cummings, 2010). Recently evolved concepts on mentoring have their stress upon the “interdependence and capacity for mutual growth in the relationship” between the mentor and the mentee (Ragins, 2012, p.240). Positive and negative aspects of mentoring on the students and staff involved. The “learning mentors” have become a regular professional group in schools (Cullingford, 2006, p.6). Ragins (2012) has summarized the factors that influence the mentoring outcome as follows: 1) there can be positive and negative experiences of mentoring relationships, 2) mentors have many mentoring relationships at a time, and some of them could be negative and some positive, and 3) there can be mentoring relationships that do not cross the boundary of formality and also there can be mentoring relationships that evolve “informally and spontaneously” (Ragins, 2012, p.241). Hence to assess the positive and negative influences of mentoring on the students as well as staff, is a delicate task. Mentoring is found to be successful only when certain criteria of behaviour are fulfilled by the mentees (Cullingford, 2006, p.6). These include, a willingness to follow procedures, respect and appreciation for the mentor, listening skills, a willingness to seek help, a readiness to change one's course of action based on another rperson's advice, readiness to acknowledge one's own errors, ability to consider one's performance in retrospection, and ability for good “interpersonal” communication (Cullingford, 2006, p.6). Cummings (2010) has studied group mentoring and cited its positive effects at the levels of “ethnic identity, academic self-concept, and school connectedness of students” (p.2). The benefits of mentoring as listed by Welsh (2004) are: Enhanced communication skills, increased self-reflection skills, improved performance, enhanced career development, increased recognition, increased respect, greater job satisfaction, opportunities for experimentation, reduced risk, faster orientation, exposure to insider information, increased access to deciion-makers, enhanced adjustment, improved self-confidence, enhanced persistence, increased self-direction, enhanced leadership skills, improved collaboration skills, enhanced network validation, friendship, improved sense of belonging, enhanced creativity [and] increased protection (p.14). Mentors have been noted as observing that the mentoring process deepen their understanding of the young people's life and its realities (Allen and Eby, 2011, p.167). The mentoring relationship has also been found to have a positive impact on the mentors in that it redrafts the “adult-youth” relationship for them (Allen and Eby, 2011, p.167). The third advantage has been that the adult mentors go through the experience of connecting with the youths on an equal footing (Allen and Eby, 2011, p.167). Last but not least, Allen and Eby (2011) have found that through the process of mentoring, the mentors are able to revisit their experiences as youngsters and see them in a new light (p.167). Angeliadis (2007) has found that mentors could feel a stronger identification with the school environment through the mentoring process (p.5). It is also observed that a volunteering mentor is motivated by a wish to help, and this wish is either coming out of having felt the need for a mentor during youth and not having one or from the inspiration he/she received from his/her own mentor (Angeliadis, 2007, p.5). DuBois and Karcher (2005) have shown that mentees also attain many benefits from the mentoring process (p.32). They have been listed as social and emotional development, cognitive development, identity development, etc. (DuBois and Kracher, 2005, p.35). There are two parallel streams of activity in the mentoring scenario of the nation- state-sponsored and private (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIII). There are also group-level and individual-level activities going on (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIII). Dolan and Brady (2012) have pointed to the mixed findings that have been made about the effectiveness of mentoring and observed, in school-based mentoring, the time and frequency of the programme mostly is insufficient to yield desired results (p.103). Carter (2012) has noted that “vertical mentoring”, or mentoring by senior peers, was successful more in private schools than public schools (p.154). Similarly, mentors from outside the school, a concept considered generally as having problem-some, is viewed by Carter (2012) as very effective on the contrary (p.154). The “official structures of mentoring” are often viewed by the parties involved with suspicion and reluctance (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIV). It is also observed that within this structure, “assessment” is sometimes given priority over real development and improvement (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIV). Another drawback of the present mentoring system has been the lack of sufficient resources and autonomy (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIV). Ayalon (2011) has pointed to the fact that a small investment made by a society in mentoring can save that society, a huge sum in social services (126). In other words, many problems that gets assimilated in the behavior of the adult can be prevented through effective mentoring thereby reducing the need of support from outside as they grow up. The model of “personal control and example” that is the core idea to conventional mentoring, is now considered as outdated (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIV). The way ahead is directed towards a model where “learning from different people” is preferred over depending upon a single person with too much authority and control (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIV). The UK universities have been recently seeing an enhanced interest in peer mentoring (Phillips, 2009).This indicates that there is a future for group mentoring and peer mentoring as compared to other mentoring models. The importance of attendance in school and current U.K attendance figures. State-funded, free and compulsory education has been implemented in UK “since the end of the nineteenth century” (Blyth and Milner, 2001, p.p.5). Yet, absenteeism in schools is a serious issue in UK, as the “rate of unexcused absences” is the highest among European nations (Grewe, 2005, p.8). The major problem involved with absenteeism is its proven link with juvenile delinquency (Grewe, 2005, p.9). The social issues identified as having a direct connection with absenteeism are, “teenage pregnancy, drug taking, and engaging in criminal activities” (Bradshaw, 2011, p.125). Statistics from different studies have shown that only 37% of students between the age of 11 and 15 like their school “a lot” (cited in Bradshaw, 2011, p.125). Absenteeism is also a disadvantage that counteracts the social inclusion and poverty reduction measures taken by the government (Bradshaw, 2011, p.125). Research has also associated absenteeism with behavioral problems in students (Bradshaw, 2011, p.125). It has been observed that in UK, in the years 2008-09, primary schools had total half-day absence amounting to 5.5% of the student population and secondary schools, 8.2% of the population (Bradshaw, 2011, p.126). It is also curious to note that majority of students who are found to be absent from secondary schools are boys (Bradshaw, 2011, p.127). Absenteeism or truancy was observed to have reached a “crisis point” in UK as early as in late 1990s and this gave rise to panic reactions from the public, media and politicians (Blyth and Milner, 2001, p.17). In 1990, the Guardian newspaper revealed that “more than half a million children were not attending schools “at least once a week, without 'acceptable reason'” (cited in Blyth and Milner, 2001, p.17). Notwithstanding this alarm raised, it is still a matter of debate whether the absenteeism estimates are error-free. Blyth and Milner (2001) have raised the doubt whether the high percentages of absenteeism noted, reflect the real situation or they include registration errors, forced withdrawal of troublesome students by parents etc. (Blyth and Milner, 2001, p.18). Anyway, as a result of the alarm raised, in 1990, UK government started a programme to enhance school attendence (Blyth and Milner, 2001, p.19). The need to prevent truancy is addressed most effectively by mentoring alone. Grossman, Chan, Schwartz and Rhodes (2011) have proven that prolonged relationship with a mentor can have a positive impact on the academic performance of a student (p.1). It has been observed that mentors have a tendency to consider the “success or failure of their mentees personally” (Cullingford, 2006, p.6). There are negative and positive aspects to this. On one side, this feeling would help the mentor to be committed in achieving the desired outcome and on the other, it might cause stress in the mentor-mentee relationship (Phillips, 2009). Lampley and Johnson (2010) have studied the special case of “at-risk” children and suggested that mentoring can be useful in addressing their needs. The students who serve as “cross-age peer mentors” are found to be having better “academic connectedness” and “self esteem” in yet another study conducted by Kracher (2009, p.292). The impact of mentoring on attendance. The basic ethos of mentoring is that “individual needs are more important than the systems” (Cullingford, 2006, p.XV). The best examples of good mentoring practices across the world have shown that success is closely linked with having a humane perspective (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIV). Establishing “personal contact” is viewed as the basis of this approach (Cullingford, 2006, p.XIV). One of the major objectives of many mentoring programmes have been to improve attendance and thereby to lessen “exclusions”, and enhance “participation” (Cruddas and Cruddas, 2005, p.16). Among at-risk children, when mentoring was introduced, a positive change in the attendence pattern was observed (Lampley and Johnson, 2009). School-based mentoring has also been found to be very effective in studies carried out by scholars like Grossman, Chan, Schwartz and Rhodes (2011, p.1). Fair, Dopkins and Decker (2012) have revealed that mentoring has a positive outcome on “school connectedness”, and “school adjustment” and in turn reduce absenteeism (p.107). Student perception on mentoring Andrews and Chilton (2000) in a study, have examined the students’ and mentors’ notions about the effectiveness of mentoring and inferred that students generally perceive mentoring as an effective intervention (p.555). A study on peer mentoring done among dental students showed that they felt it reduced their stress, at the time of transition from one course to another and allowed better access to persons and academic resources (Lopez, Johnson and Black, 2010, p.1197). There are contradictory studies too that see some level of ambiguity in student perceptions about the role of the mentor (Gidman, McIntosh, Melling and Smith, 2011). Peer mentoring programmes are viewed by many students as coping mechanisms in dealing with “retention rates”, especially of minority students , “appropriate behavior” that evolves out of seeing role models, and “social and professional isolation” that is experienced by graduate students (Lopez, Johnson and Black, 2010, p.1198). Kochan (2002) has studied student perceptions on mentoring relationship using a survey and inferred that above 60 percent of the mentoring relationships were perceived by students as “informal” (p.59). Students also were found to desire for a mentor of their own gender (Kochan, 2002, p.59). Though having similar advantages, one major issue involved with mentoring can be “cultural mistrust”, as acknowledged by the students (Kochan, 2002, p.197). In this context, student perception analysis is to be an integral part of mentoring effectiveness assessment. Hauer, Teherani, Dechet and Aagaard (2005) studied the impact of mentoring on medical students and concluded that this student group view and understand mentoring based on an informal relationship, and personal dynamics (p.732-4). Eps (2006) studied the approach to mentoring among nursing students and showed that students saw its benefits in having a “long term, supportive relationship” (p.1). From the above discussion, it is clear that mentoring if done effectively, can have a positive influence on students' career, behaviour and future. The areas where a re-drafting of the concept is needed include, replacing single mentorship with group mentorship, and providing enough time for the mentoring programme to become successful. Conclusion The studies done so far on mentoring suggest that the concept and processes of mentoring need to be re-worked upon based on the contemporary needs. The major concern that prevails is the abruptness of the process involved. The mentor-mentee relationship must not be viewed as something that has a beginning and an end, bound by formal requirements of time and space. Once a mentoring programme ends, the mentee must have some kind of mechanism to avail similar services and the feedback gathered from the experiences of the mentor has to be used for life skills development of the mentee with or without help of further mentoring. All the same, high dependence on a single person for mentoring by a mentee has to be avoided in order to prevent unhealthy dependency and subjective involvement. The existing research show positive movements towards these changes but also reveal that desired progress has not been made so far in this process. References Angeliadis, M. 2007. The effects of mentoring on the elementary special education mentor, ProQuest, Michigan. Allen, T.D. And Eby, L.T. 2011. The Blackwell handbook of mentoring: A multiple perspectives approach, John Wiley & Sons, London. 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Mentoring to reduce antisocial behaviourp in childhood, British Medical Journal, vol.328, no.7438, pp.512-514, viewed 25 October 2012, < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC351855/> Robinson, G. and Crow, I.D. 2009. Offender rehabilitation: Theory, research and practice, SAGE, London. Welsh, S. 2004. Mentoring the future: A guide to building mentor programs that work, John Penton and Shona Welsh, London. Read More