Metaphors for Mentoring

Older Adult Mentors and Youth at Risk: Challenges for Intergenerational Mentoring Programs in Family-Centered Cultures

“…Ganser, 1998;Dejong, 2004;Scanlon, 2009). In fact, Dejong (2004) reports that all the participants in his study, both mentors and mentees from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, reported using comparisons or metaphors when thinking of their mentor/mentee.…”

“…Therefore, it seems that the need to actively construct an adequate social representation for the mentoring relationship by anchoring it to a more familiar category would not be unique to the Spanish case, although it may feel more urgent the more unfamiliar the mentor role is in a given context. Ganser (1998), in an interesting systematic attempt to explore the metaphors that expert mentors provide for their role, reports that sociocognitive anchors for mentoring are found in the fields of close interpersonal relationships (offspring, favorite aunt, older brother, friend), teaching (flight instructor, sports coaching, Socratic master), prevention and emergency services (family practice physician, mechanic assistance), growth and creation (gardener, artist sculpting clay), or even in the field of the extraordinary (guardian angel, fairy godrnother). This author finds that kinship relationships such as parenting, sibling, or grandparenting provide one of the more powerful and frequent anchors for social representation of mentoring relationships.…”

“…This author finds that kinship relationships such as parenting, sibling, or grandparenting provide one of the more powerful and frequent anchors for social representation of mentoring relationships. Ganser (1998) highlights that in order to advance knowledge of the processes through which mentors and mentees come to understand and act on their respective roles, there would be a need to examine relationships between those metaphors and variables such as purpose of the mentoring relationship or profile of mentor and mentee. And, indeed, there is some evidence that the choice of metaphors may be influenced by the purpose and the style or the context of the mentoring relationship.…”

Educative mentoring: Promoting reform‐based science teaching through mentoring relationships

“…This view saw the mentor as someone who could help a novice lessen the stress of the transition into teaching by providing critical emotional support (Gold, 1996). This conception of mentoring has previously been described as coach, confidant, teacher, parent figure, role model, counselor, and sponsor (Abell, Dillon, Hopkins, McInerney, & O'Brien, 1995; Ganser, 1998; Gehrke & Kay, 1984; Little, 1990).…”

Creating Mentorship Metaphors: Pacific Island Perspectives

“…With regard to relating metaphors to mentorship, Ganser (2008) found that mentors, themselves, represented their mentoring practice in a variety of ways, such as: family or relation (e.g., serving as a parent, counselor, or friend); sports (e.g., serving as a coach or a lifeguard); directive (e.g., serving as a navigator or a pilot); or nurturing/ developmental (e.g., serving as a gardener or a tailor). By contrast, Busen and Engebretson (1999) had indicated nearly a decade earlier that some of these same metaphors could also be used in a "toxic" sense, whereby the protégé would have little or no input into his/her professional development, but was merely a passive recipient in the process.…”