Applying a Social Justice Lens to Youth Mentoring: A Review of the Literature and Recommendations for Practice

Abstract

Youth mentoring interventions are often designed with the intention of promoting improved outcomes among marginalized youth. Despite their promise to reduce inequality through the provision of novel opportunities and increased social capital to marginalized youth, youth mentoring interventions hold the potential to reproduce rather than reduce inequality. In the current review, we explore literature on youth mentoring that has incorporated a social justice lens. We conclude that there is a need for greater attention to principles of social justice in the design, implementation, and evaluation of youth mentoring interventions. After reviewing the literature, we make recommendations for research and practice based on a social justice perspective and explore alternatives to traditional youth mentoring that may allow for better alignment with social justice principles.

Supporting adults to support youth: An evaluation of two social justice trainings

“…Prior recommendations for social justice frameworks in youth mentoring (Albright et al., ; Weiston‐Serdan, ) highlight the need to support adults to better understand systemic factors influencing the youth with whom they work. This study explored whether social justice trainings play a role in increasing mentors’ cultural competence and racial self‐efficacy, and whether these increases varied by participant shared identity with youth.…”

“…The pattern of findings from both studies that indicated significantly higher cultural sensitivity suggests that trainings may play a role in facilitating how mentors develop empathy for the environmental factors influencing youth. Increased understanding of the contextual factors in mentees’ lives is an important factor in understanding the systemic oppression that marginalized youth face (Albright et al., ). Moreover, this is an important prerequisite to future action.…”

“…Social justice trainings are one avenue by which educators and practitioners have attempted to reduce adults’ biases when working with youth from less privileged backgrounds. Generally, social justice “emphasizes equal access to resources, dissolution of power hierarchies, and the empowerment and promotion of wellness among marginalized populations” (Albright, Hurd, & Hussain, , p. 364). In a review of the literature, Albright et al.…”

“…In a review of the literature, Albright et al. () argue that a social justice lens to mentoring is necessary given the inherent power hierarchies that exist within youth‐adult relationships. Namely, mentors often occupy positions of power (e.g., middle class) while mentees may be in marginalized positions (e.g., low income).…”

Ideological profiles of US adults and their support for youth mentoring

“…Traditional one‐to‐one mentoring programs locate problems (i.e., a lack of role models for at‐risk youth) and solutions (i.e., deployment of middle‐class volunteers) at the individual, rather than societal, level (Schwartz & Rhodes, ). Although mentoring researchers and practitioners are beginning to attend to multiple levels of the social ecology, this individualistic ideology is still influential and may continue to drive some conservatives’ support for mentoring (Albright, Hurd, & Hussain, ). Conservatives may see mentoring as a way of addressing inequality by helping young people “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” rather than increasing government spending on welfare, universal healthcare, and higher education (Schwartz & Rhodes, ).…”