Deconstructing Mentoring: The Impact of Critically Conscious Reciprocal Mentoring on Power Dynamics

• In Event: Critically Conscious Reciprocal Mentoring: Reimagining and Renewing the Egalitarian Learning Community

Abstract

In this autoethnographic inquiry (Creswell, 2016; Fetterman, 2019), we analyze the potential for critical consciousness mentorship within the Salon of Sorts, an informal gathering of academics from varied disciplines within the university. Attendees include tenured, junior, and clinical faculty alongside graduate students and lecturers. The purpose is the authentic exchange of ideas related to the transformation of social relations. Our goal is to provide space for more critical conversations to educate, develop solidarity and develop a foundational space for communicative action (Habermas, 1984).

Mentorship can help people better understand the world in more critically conscious ways. As Freire (1972) suggests, a critically conscious actor is able to read the world to better understand its essential nature. How then does one come to understand themselves in the world? Social knowledge is mediated through one’s subjective culture and perceptions, however, these interpretations become more complex when individual perceptions become shared experiences (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Souto-Manning, 2010). Therefore, truly understanding the world involves deeply considering our own subjectivities and how they relate to others. Internalizing the realities of others can only truly occur when spaces exist where individuals feel free to share their authentic nature (Author & Anonymous, forthcoming; Freire & Macedo, 2005). Unfortunately, difficult conversations commonly go unexplored when individuals feel uncomfortable with ideas, and political or ideological stances (Byford et al., 2009). However, less formal and threatening spaces often allow participants to engage in the dialogical exchange of lived experience by reducing formal judgment (Noguera et al., 2006; McAvoy & Hess, 2013).

We suggest that the Salon of Sorts might serve as a transformational venue where teachers, students, mentors, mentees, and friends can gather and share ideas as relative equals. Mentorship often includes dynamics that make it difficult to engage in reciprocal mentorship between mentor and mentee, requiring a certain fluidity to be successful (Author, 2020; Girves et al., 2005; Haring; 1999; Jacobi, 1991 & Johnson, 2003). In these and other ways, power can sometimes limit the exchanges mentors and mentees might otherwise have. Therefore, creating spaces that are inviting, entertaining, and engaging might allow individuals to negate many of the dialectical tensions that can often limit the possibility for more critical conversations in formal settings. Centering exchanges like those in an Enlightenment salon (Goodman, 1996), can position participants as agentic democratic actors working toward a more egalitarian society. The environment might allow participants to more fully deconstruct hegemonic norms in an engaging and educational environment. We argue that these explorations within this neo-salon allows participants to share their subjectivities, social analyses, and subsequently develop a shared hermeneutic for critical interrogation of a society and action within it (Author, 2019). Lastly, we argue that the types of participation needed to transform society in truly democratic ways cannot be achieved without the negation of the hierarchical power inherent to institutions and social relations. Therefore, the salon itself might serve as a model for democratic exchange as teachers, learners engage in exchange and social transformation (Ross, 2015).

Author

• Jess Smith, Baylor University