Introduction to the special issue: Youth mentoring: Bridging science with practice

Abstract

Abstract Initiatives to promote mentoring relationships in the lives of young people have become immensely popular in recent years. Programs with this aim now number well into the thousands and benefit from significant levels of governmental, corporate, and philanthropic support. The research base that is necessary to inform the practice of mentoring, by comparison, has lagged behind. To address the field's need for a stronger scientific foundation, MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership convened the National Research Summit on Mentoring in 2003. A policy brief that resulted from the summit identified several priority areas for future research on youth mentoring, as well as strategic mechanisms to support this work. This special issue features reports from working groups at the summit that were organized around the following themes: evaluation and research methodology, relationships, programs, contexts, special populations, developmental and cultural perspectives, and community organizing and advocacy. Collectively, the reports highlight the need for research to clarify a wide range of important theoretical and pragmatic issues in efforts to promote effective mentoring of youth. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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