Why should we care about cultural issues in youth mentoring?  Dr Bernadette Sanchez is associate professor of psychology at DePaul University Illinois, USA. She was international guest speaker at this year’s New Zealand Youth Mentoring Conference and she spoke to mentoring practitioners at the recent South Australian AYMN forum in Adelaide. Here, she shares her reflections from that trip to discuss the role of race and ethnicity in youth mentoring relationships, and the implications of this for program design.

As mentoring programs around the world continue to grow to serve young people of all backgrounds, it is increasingly important for practitioners and researchers to be attuned to the various needs of individual youth and communities. As a typical, naïve visitor from the U.S., I was struck by Australia’s diversity. I expected to learn about Australia’s diverse Indigenous groups, but I also learnt about the many immigrant and refugee populations accessing mentoring programs around the country; Iraqi, Lebanese, and East African refugee youth, to name a few.

Similar to the U.S., there are some programs in Australia that target specific cultural groups, while others target a variety of youth. A typical question that Australian mentoring staff asked during my visit was whether programs should match youth and mentors by race/ethnicity. I will answer that question as well as discuss another important topic to consider in mentoring: ethnic identity. The research that I will review is based on work in the U.S., which is clearly a different culture and context. But I hope that inferences can be made about how to apply the findings to mentoring programs in Australia.

Does cross-race vs. same-race mentoring matter?

A crucial first consideration in matching a young person with their mentor is youth and parent preference regarding a mentor’s cultural background. Similar to the experiences of practitioners, researchers have found that some parents want their children to be paired with racially similar mentors, some have no preference while others want a racially different mentor (Spencer, Basualdo-Delmonico, & Lewis, 2009).

Some parents think that racial similarity will facilitate relationship development because of shared cultural traditions or  shared experience of being from an ethnic minority group. But some parents expressed the view that the personal qualities (e.g. trustworthiness) of the mentor were more important than race. Other parents feel that cross-race mentoring will benefit their children by exposing them to a different culture and different networks (Spencer et al., 2009). Thus, the matching process should take youth’s and parents’ preferences into account.

Ensher and Murphy (1997) conducted a noteworthy study to examine the effect of racial similarity on the quality of mentoring relationships. They investigated adolescents in a summer internship program, who were randomly assigned to either a mentor of the same race or a mentor of a difference race. From the youth’s perspectives, racial similarity did not play a role in their level of satisfaction with their relationship, nor the desire to continue the relationship after the program ended. But youth’s perceptions that their mentors were similar to them in outlooks and values were related to liking the mentor, relationship satisfaction and the desire to continue the relationship. These findings suggest that similarity in other dimensions might be more important than race in the quality of mentoring relationships.

In sum, the previous study suggests that we should look beyond the race/ethnicity of a mentor. It seems that there are other factors, such as a similarity in values, that are more important in the quality of mentoring relationships and which are at the heart of making a difference in the lives of youth. This does not mean that culture doesn’t matter. It implies, however, that simply considering the race of the mentor is insufficient to understand the role of culture in mentoring. We need to look beyond the surface and consider cultural processes.

Looking beyond the surface: racial and ethnic identity

Ethnic identity is an important part of youth development. A comprehensive review of research on ethnic identity and adolescent well-being reveals that a stronger ethnic identity is related to more positive academic, psychological, and social outcomes among ethnic minority youth in the U.S. (Wakefield & Hudley, 2007). As such, a healthy racial/ethnic identity may be an important goal for mentoring programs.

Research supports the idea that mentoring is related to ethnic identity. Colleagues and I conducted a study of African American adolescents in the U.S. (Hurd, Sanchez, Zimmerman & Caldwell, 2011) and found that having a natural mentor predicted a more positive racial identity. Most of the natural mentors of these youth were also African American, and it is possible that these mentors may directly influence African American adolescents’ racial identities through the transmission of positive racial socialisation messages.  This may be seen as an opportunity to bolster adolescents’ self-esteem and prepare them to cope with acts of racism or other adverse race-related experiences they may face.

Evaluation research of mentoring programs also suggests that mentoring can lead to a stronger ethnic identity. One study, for instance, found that girls in a culturally relevant mentoring program had a stronger ethnic identity compared to girls in a traditional mentoring program (Pryce, DuBois & Silverthorn, 2010). Overall, these studies suggest that mentoring may facilitate racial/ ethnic identity development.

Program recommendations

When to match youth with same-race mentors

• Youth/parent preference
• Youth has weak ethnic identity and/or internalized racism
• Youth has few positive role models from same race/ethnicity
• Available same race/ethnicity mentors have a positive ethnic identity

When to match youth with cross-race mentors

• Youth/parent preference
• Youth lives in a segregated community
• Youth has a strong racial/ethnic identity
• Youth has specific interests
• Mentor has a negative identity and/or internalized  racism

Ethnic/racial identity and youth mentoring

• Focus on fostering racial/ethnic identity among youth (e.g. encouraging mentors to provide opportunities to explore mentees’ heritage), given its importance in positive youth development;
• Assess youths’ ethnic or racial identity.

Dr Bernadette Sanchez is an associate professor of psychology at DePaul University Illinois, USA and has been conducting research on Latino youth’s mentoring relationships for more than 10 years. She is a member of the national committee of the Friends of the Children and a member of the Advisory Board of the Hispanic Mentoring Initiative of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago.

References

Ensher, A. E., & Murphy, S. E. (1997). Effects of race, gender, perceived similarity, and contact

on mentor relationships. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 50, 460-481.

Hewatt – Grant, J. (2009). The relationship between ethnic identity and psychological health: A Meta-analytic review. Dissertation Abstracts International, 69 (12-B), 7810.

Hurd, N., Sánchez, B., Zimmerman, M. & Caldwell, C. (in press). The role of mentoring in racial identity and educational outcomes among African American youth. Child Development.

Pryce, J. M., DuBois, D. L., & Silverthorn, N. (2010). Beyond the dyad: A mixed method analysis of group experiences and outcomes in a girls mentoring program. In N. L. Deutsch (Chair), Strength in numbers: The potential of group mentoring as an intervention for adolescents. Symposium presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Philadelphia, PA.

Sánchez, B., & Colón, Y. (2005). Race, ethnicity, and culture in mentoring. In D.L. DuBois &

M.J. Karcher (Eds.), Handbook of youth mentoring (pp. 191-204). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Spencer, R., Basualdo-Delmonico, A., & Lewis, T.O. (2011). Working to make it work: The role

of parents in the youth mentoring process. Journal of Community Psychology, 39(1), 51-59.

Wakefield, W. D., & Hudley, C. (2007). Ethnic and racial identity and adolescent well-being. Theory into Practice, 46, 147-154.