The Positive Effects of Mentoring Economically Disadvantaged Students.

Abstract

Asizable proportion of economically disadvantaged, but able, students might not be able to realize their potential during their school years and beyond due, in part, to complexity of factors associated with their home environment (Clark, 1988; McLoyd, 1990). Volumes of case studies, biographies, and autobiographies of successful individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds reveal often pivotal role supportive mentoring by adults played in their lives. For example, in interviews with 500 economically disadvantaged youth, Lefkowitz (1986) found that a majority of them credited their success to support of a caring adult in their lives. Countless and moving success stories have been described in various media sources in which youths tell how their lives were turned around through a mentoring relationship with a caring adult (cf. Morgan, 1995; Smalley, 1993). Given mentoring's appeal, it is not surprising that: the current mentoring movement has spawned not only a flurry of activity, but enormous expectations for its effectiveness in helping disadvantaged youth (Freedman, 1991, p. 41). The importance of mentors in youths' lives could be explained from several different perspectives. According to social capital theory (Coleman, 1987,1991), a mentoring relationship constitutes a social capital that is critical to human development, because it enables students to develop necessary attitudes, effort, and conception of self that they need to succeed in school and as adults. Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) has postulated that humans tend to emulate behavior they see in others they care for and admire. From this perspective, formal mentoring programs establish critical oneon-one relationship with a caring adult, which supports healthy development of youth. Egan (1994) has indicated a counseling perspective in which a mentor is considered to play similar roles to a counselor who helps clients have realistic beliefs, reduce fears and anxieties, and develop working knowledge, life skills, and resources so that they can succeed. Human performance is influenced by one's perceived competence, positive expectancies, perceived control, and will power (Bandura, 1977, 1986; Harter, 1983). Similarly, poor performance derives not only from deficits in skills and abilities, but also from doubts, anxieties, negative expectations, low perceived effectance, low perceived control, pessimism, low selfefficacy, and low self-esteem (Bandura, 1977, 1986; Harter, 1982; Scheier, Weintraub, & Carver, 1986). Accordingly, Bandura (1977, 1986) demonstrated power of one's beliefs over one's current ability in explaining performance. For example, he explained that stronger one's perceived self-efficacy, more effort one will exert and more one will persist on a given task. Other researchers have examined role of future expectancies or aspirations on current performance. Singer (1974) and Torrance (1983) both noted that way students see their future is directly related to their academic performance as well as their ability to live, cope, and grow in a high-change society. The theory of possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986) points out importance of self-knowledge that pertains to how individuals think about their potential and about their future. Markus, Cross, and Wurf (1990) maintain that long-term possible selves give form and direction to self-regulation, planning, and strategy selection. Day, Borkowski, Dietmeyer, Howsepian, and Saenz (1992) note that: Positive visions of one's future (such as 'me as a physician ) give meaning to school subjects related to those visions ('I study science so that I can realize my goal to become a physician ). (p. 185) According to an earlier study of successful persons from seriously economically disadvantaged backgrounds (Glaser & Ross, 1970), one of main characteristics that differentiates successful persons and unsuccessful persons with both Black and Mexican ethnicity is goal orientation: Successful persons have longrange goals toward which they have moved by planning, preparation, work, or some kind of consistent effort, whereas unsuccessful persons have preferred short-range goals with tangible pleasures or rewards that involve little planning or consistent effort, nor do they talk in terms of goals. …

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