Ethnic-Racial (Mis)Match between Mentors and Mentees on Perceived Strength of Relationship

Abstract

Mentoring programs are popular mechanisms for promoting positive youth development due to developmental research suggesting that youth with strong relationships with a special adult have a lower likelihood of a range of negative outcomes. Community-based mentoring programs are mechanisms for promoting access to mental health support and positive youth outcomes. Youth mentorship programs reveal mixed and modest outcomes, yet youth outcomes are more robust for high-quality relationships. Ethnic-racial identity is hypothesized to affect the relationship quality because shared identities are thought to facilitate trust and empower youth to succeed. However, studies have found that ethnic-racial match does not affect the strength of the dyadic relationship. This study attempts to address these disparate findings by explicitly examining ethnic-racial matching and relationship quality at two-time points. We conducted a two-step hierarchical regression to determine whether ethnic-racial match affected mentee reports of the relationship at follow-up. The results show ethnic-racial match did not significantly predict positive dimensions of the relationship at follow-up. Moreover, same-ethnic-racial matches reported a lower rate of change and slightly less relationship dissatisfaction at time 2 compared to cross-ethnic-racial matches. Results contribute to existing literature showing mixed results in ethnic-racial matching in youth mentorship programs.

Keywords

• mentorship programs
• youth
• social-emotional development
• mental health
• ethnicity
• race