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Mentoring programs: A framework to inform program development, research, and evaluation
Author(s) -
Karcher Michael J.,
Kuperminc Gabriel P.,
Portwood Sharon G.,
Sipe Cynthia L.,
Taylor Andrea S.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.20125
Subject(s) - confusion , context (archaeology) , psychology , intervention (counseling) , test (biology) , peer mentoring , medical education , computer science , engineering ethics , pedagogy , medicine , engineering , paleontology , psychiatry , psychoanalysis , biology
As mentoring programs have proliferated, considerable variation in approaches to programmatic mentoring has emerged. Concomitant confusion exists about the context, structure, and goals that constitute mentoring as a distinct intervention. This article presents a brief summary of what is currently known about different approaches to mentoring and proposes a framework that identifies both the common and the specific elements among different youth mentoring approaches. Rather than focusing solely on the participants and contexts of mentoring programs, such as peer‐ or school‐based mentoring, as the key elements that differentiate programs, the authors suggest that more fruitful program development and research will result from a closer examination of the context, structure, and goals of programs, as well as of three critical program elements: content, infrastructure, and dosage. To understand better how and under what conditions mentoring works, program developers and researchers should test hypotheses regarding the influences of these program elements based on theory‐driven expectations about the interrelationships among proximal, enabling, and distal outcomes of mentoring programs. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.