Mentoring but Not Being Mentored: Improving Student-to-Student Mentoring Programs to Attract Urban Youth to Teaching

The following study examined a mentoring program in which seven adolescent male students of color mentored elementary students. As the program goal was to encourage African American and Latino adolescents to consider a teaching career, the study examined the intersection of the perceptions of the adolescent mentors with the structural constraints of the elementary school in which they worked. Analysis of mentors’ perceptions revealed the value to them of their engagement with their protégés, their indifference to an indifferent school setting, and their rejection of teaching as a possible career. The study included the mentors as research participants in its research method.