Mentor in the Mirror: How Possibility Models and Anti-Mentors Shape STEMM Graduate-Undergraduate Mentorship

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Trust, Mentorship, and Belonging for Minoritized and Underserved Students in STEM (Table 33)

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how graduate students in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) serve as mentors to undergraduates, engaging in “stage-ahead” mentoring. Guided by possible selves and the equity-minded mentoring model, we leverage visual and interview data from 10 STEMM doctoral students to explore how past/present mentors serve as possibility models or anti-mentors. Findings discuss participants’ past/present developmental networks, past selves and self-concept as antecedents of stage-ahead mentoring, (un)mirrored behaviors of past/present mentors, and conceptualization about providing (dis)similar mentorship than past/present mentors. By positioning graduate students as mentors, rather than only mentees, this study advances our knowledge about the roots and potential consequences of equity-minded mentoring as a transformative educational possibility for graduate student mentors and their mentees.

Authors

• Annie M. Wofford, Florida State University

• Johnnie L. Allen, Florida State University