Anti-Racism Education and Training for Adult Mentors Who Work With BIPOC Adolescents

Abstract

Racism and White supremacy culture shape the experiences of youth and adults in mentoring programs, which is detrimental to the development of BIPOC youth. The aims of this paper are to a) show why anti-racism training and education for adult mentors is necessary for promoting the positive development of BIPOC youth and b) offer a framework for anti-racist education and training for mentors. We review research showing how mentors’ attitudes about race, ethnicity and culture can harm their relationships with BIPOC youth and research on general mentor training, anti-racism training for mentors, and general diversity and anti-bias training in the workplace. Crossing disciplinary boundaries to inform developmental science, we draw upon critical mentoring, culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy, and ethnic/racial identity frameworks, and propose four components for anti-racist education and training for mentors: a) acknowledging, confronting, and interrupting racism, b) facilitating youth critical consciousness, c) supporting positive identity development in youth, and d) mentors and mentees as active agents and partners. At the foundation of these pillars is decentering and interrupting Whiteness and youth as co-constructors of knowledge. We offer suggestions for future research and practice in anti-racism training for mentors, which also have implications for youth-adult relationships across settings.

All Things Considered: Examining Mentoring Relationships Between White Mentors and Black Youth in Community-Based Youth Mentoring Programs

“…For example, the ways in which racism and racial identity impact rapport building between youth and their mentors is not explicitly mentioned in the most influential youth mentoring frameworks (see Rhodes, 2005 ; Spencer, 2006 ). An emerging body of literature has called for research that considers the role of race, culture, racism, and social justice in youth mentoring relationships (Sánchez et al, 2018 , 2021 ; Schwartz et al, 2016 ; Weiston-Serdan, 2017 ).…”

Cultural Humility Training for Mentors: Lessons Learned and Implications for Youth Programs

“…By contrast, a mentor's lack of cultural awareness to power differences in the relationship can also harm the relationship trajectory (Spencer, 2007;Spencer et al, 2022). This research supports calls to action following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020 to address the longstanding impact of racism in the field of youth development (for special issues, see Halgunseth et al, 2022;Kornbluh et al, 2021), including the need for anti-racism training within the field (Outley & Blyth, 2020;Sánchez et al, 2021).…”

“…The programs (Kalinoski et al, 2013;Outley & Blyth, 2020;Sánchez et al, 2021). In conjunction with lessons focused on facilitation and logistical details, we emphasize the lessons that charge youth programs with the task of considering how training can be one component of a larger, organizationally backed training series that is inclusive of ongoing support for volunteers.…”

(Not) minding the gap: A qualitative interview study of how social class bias can influence youth mentoring relationships

“…However, we cannot account for how racial bias may have compounded and, in some cases, may have been the primary driver of the deficits views of families observed here. Some attention has begun to be paid to how attitudes and beliefs about race, including racism, can influence the mentoring process (Albright et al, 2017;Anderson et al, 2018;Sánchez et al, 2014Sánchez et al, , 2019Sánchez et al, , 2021. More work is needed, as is research that explicitly examines and attends to greater nuance in how racism and classism may intersect in different ways within different constellations of mentoring dyads and systems to influence the mentoring process (Cho et al, 2013;Crenshaw 1993).…”

“…Furthermore, these relationships are supported by program staff whose backgrounds are more like that of the mentors than the youth and their families (Keller & DuBois, 2021; Spencer et al, 2021). Whereas there are some (albeit still too limited) examinations of the role of racial and ethnic differences between youth and mentors in the mentoring process (Albright et al, 2017; Anderson et al, 2018; Liao & Sanchez, 2015; Sánchez et al, 2021), there has been almost no attention to social class differences (Deutsch et al, 2014). This study sought to examine whether and how implicit, and therefore unexamined (or not “minded”), social class dynamics may be enacted by mentors and mentoring program staff within community‐based youth mentoring relationships and how these may influence mentoring relationship quality.…”