Date of Award

8-1-2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

Morgridge College of Education

First Advisor

Frank Tuitt, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Jesse Valdez

Third Advisor

Lori Patton

Fourth Advisor

Arthur Jones

Keywords

African American, Mentoring, Race

Abstract

Mentoring provides personal support, academic assistance and career guidance to college students of color whose experiences have been documented to be very different from those of their White counterparts. Achievement inequity, problems of persistence, experiences of racism and student reports of feeling marginalized and misunderstood threaten the ability of students of color to succeed in college. While it may be assumed that race plays a central role in the mentoring relationships of students of color, this assumption may be misguided. The existence of formal mentoring programs and informal mentoring relationships that support students of color does not necessarily ensure that the confounded issue of race is appropriately embedded as a shaping force in the mentor/mentee association. This paper will deconstruct the assumption that approaches to the mentoring of students of color automatically consider race by applying Critical Race Theory as a theoretical framework to examine if and how race is present in the relationship between mentors and their African American student mentees at predominantly White institutions of higher education. Using phenomenological research design, this study brings race out of the rhetoric of higher education and places it in the center of examination to uncover student perceptions of race and how it operates within the mentoring relationship to help us better understand how we ensure high quality mentoring can be actively applied in our efforts to support the success of college students of color.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Bridgette Coble

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

393 p.

Discipline

Higher education

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