Year: 2017
Type: review
Study design: Systematic Review
Abstract: The purpose of this inductive systematic literature review was to explore mentoring programs serving Black adolescent males and search for practical ways mentors can better support their Black male mentees. Using Geneva Gay’s work on culturally responsive care as a conceptual framework, my review of the literature was guided by two questions: (1) What promising practices of mentoring emerge from a review of the literature over the last 20 years; and (2) What themes of caring mentors and mentoring of Black males emerge from the literature? Using the University of Pittsburgh's PittCat+ comprehensive online database, I began with the search term 'Mentoring AND Black Males', and included search parameters of peer-reviewed/scholarly studies from the last 20 years. Additional included and excluded subject terms helped narrow the results. Of the 200 remaining studies, 16 specifically explored mentoring programs primarily serving Black adolescent males and included examples of mentors “caring for” mentees. Examples of “caring for” were color coded into a database, and the data was synthesized through thematic analysis to ascertain my findings. Six themes of care emerged as practices of mentors serving Black adolescent males. The six themes included: safety, emotional care, culture affirming care, social care, academic care and organizational care. Among the major findings was the indication that the themes were hierarchical with organizational care serving as a foundation for which the other examples of care are predicated. Similarly, the theme of safety appeared to serve as a prerequisite in the mentor/mentee relationship for which the other themes could be practiced effectively. The findings are significant because they support a dearth of literature on the mentoring of Black adolescent males from a strength-based perspective, and positions mentoring as a tool to care and not as a tool to “fix.” The findings in this review may also serve as a means to address disparities between the negative educational experience of some Black boys and other adolescent students.
Author: Paul Spradley
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2757985722