“My Mentor Thinks That I can Be Someone Amazing”: Drawing Out Youths’ Passions and Purpose

Abstract

This qualitative descriptive study analyzed the role that natural mentors had in cultivating a sense of purpose and meaning among 38 diverse male and female high school students. The types of mentoring support provided and the students’ perceived experiences of receiving the support were considered in the analysis. Directed content analysis revealed four initial overarching types of supportive actions that were provided by mentors: emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal support. The types of support offered were further categorized across three dimensions of perceived support by the mentees: (a) affirmation (e.g., the experience of emotional and appraisal support), (b) cultivation (e.g., the experience of being challenged and obtaining skills), and (c) guidance (e.g., the experience of receiving information and advice). In order for mentees to perceive and accept cultivation and guidance support, they first needed to experience an affirming relationship with their mentors. Findings may inform best practices for mentoring youth toward lives of meaning and purpose.

Interacting with supportive adults predicts greater same‐day psychosocial functioning among adolescents in a self‐driven learning program

“…Conceptualized as proxies for individuallevel thriving markers (Benson & Scales, 2009), this link between increased psychosocial functioning and supportive adult interactions suggests the Champion feature of GripTape may be associated with some of the positive youth benefits the program strives to achieve (see GripTape, 2021b). The finding is also consistent with prior literature showing youth with access to supportive adults, like mentors, tend to have favorable developmental and well-being outcomes, including a stronger sense of purpose and more positive self-views (e.g., van Dam et al, 2018;Raposa et al, 2019;Rhodes, 2002;White et al, 2021). To our knowledge, however, this study is among the first to model youth-adult interactions within the context of OST programs at the daily level.…”

“…Conceptually, Rhodes' (2002) Model of Youth Mentoring suggests that upregulated socioemotional, cognitive, and identity development may explain the association between popular OST‐based youth‐adult relationships and positive youth outcomes. Growing empirical evidence favors these claims, with the presence of supportive adults appearing to correspond with benefits for youths' well‐being, self‐esteem, self‐regulation, self‐concept, positive racial identity attitudes, and sense of purpose (van Dam et al, 2018; Hurd et al, 2012; Karcher, 2005; McQuillin et al, 2022; Raposa et al, 2019; Rhodes & Roffman, 2003; Scales et al, 2011; White et al, 2021). Against this backdrop of positive outcomes pointing to the value of supportive adults in OST programming, a closer look at how youth arrive at these endpoints is worthwhile.…”

Youth Perspectives on Decent Education and College and Career Readiness

“…Related to social support functions commonly observed among youth (White et al, 2021), instrumental guidance and social networking were attributed more often to the workplace and school, while emotional support was associated with the family, school, and workplace. Our findings thus add to recent scholarship identifying the school and workplace as important sites for promoting social capital that connects young people with opportunities for school and work advancement (Freeland Fisher & Charania, 2021).…”

Promoting decent work and decent life for all: Preparing the next generation through decent education and career development education

“…Research (Liang et al, 2017) suggests that young people gain a sense of purpose through awareness and pursuit of their interests and talents and the influence of people in their lives. Youths describe their natural mentors are contributing to their sense of purpose (White et al, 2021). While experiences that promote youth purpose often occur in school, family, and community settings, research also suggests that youth purpose can be intentionally cultivated through work-based learning and career development education (Kenny, Blustein, et al, 2019; Kenny, Liang, et al, 2019; Sepulveda et al, 2021).…”