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All content in this area was uploaded by Tereza J. Brumovska on Jun 15, 2020
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Content uploaded by Tereza J. Brumovska
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Tereza J. Brumovska on Jun 15, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
Abstact for Conference: Mentoring in Social Context
Paper: Challenges and principles of social supports in formal youth mentoring relationships
in the context of cultural diversity
Dr. Tereza Brumovská
UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre,
School of Political Science and Sociology,
National University of Ireand, Galway
Formal youth mentoring relationships are generally proved to be beneficial for socially-
disadvantaged children and young people (Rhodes, 2005, Tierney et al., 1995). Nevertheless,
studies showed that only some formal youth mentoring relationships developed to the
quality of informal supportive mentoring bonds (Grossman, Rhodes, 2002, Spencer, 2007,
Brumovská, 2017). The nature of the mentoring bond between a caring, experienced adult
and less experienced and disadvantaged mentee impose the challenges on the mentors
when they develop mentoring bond with children.
The presentation will discuss the results of doctoral thesis that studied the pathways of
quality social supports provided in formal mentoring bonds
1
. In particular, the paper will
introduce the challenges of formal mentoring bond that mentors have to cope with;
including the cultural and social diversity of mentees. Following that, the paper will discuss
the pathways with key characteristics of quality in mentors´ approach that mediated the
effective social supports in formal mentoring bonds. Consequently, the mentoring bonds
with quality of informal long-term supportive relationships were developed. The challenges
of formal mentoring bond and the pathways of coping with the key characteristics of quality
in mentors´ approach will be emphasized and discussed in the context of social and cultural
diversity.
1
Longitudinal in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with mentoring participants 3 times over 1 year
of mentoring involvement. Interpretive phenomenological analysis explored experiences, values and attitudes
of mentoring participants, and theoretical framework of self-determination theory explained the resulted
pathways of supportive and controlling mentoring dynamics, risks and quality features of formal mentoring
bond.