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Culturally Affirming Mentoring Relationships: Practices of Resilience and Recovery for Women Scholars

Sat, April 23, 2:30 to 4:00pm PDT (2:30 to 4:00pm PDT), Manchester Grand Hyatt, Floor: 2nd Level, Harbor Tower, Seaport Ballroom C

Abstract

Objectives
The significant inequities exposed by the ongoing pandemic (2020 and 2021) demand that the provision of higher education as it relates to student anxiety (Bana & Sarfaraz, 2020), curriculum delivery reform (Darwish, AI Batsaki & Terro, 2021), and campus public health safety (Weissman, 2020) be reimagined. This paper explores the ways in which women scholars engage in mentoring relationships as a means of resilience and recovery during the pandemic. We address how our knowledge and value systems are used as assets to navigate spaces of marginalization and re-define ourselves in ways that are personally and culturally meaningful.
Theoretical Framework
Developing upon Nakhid’s (2021) work on culturally affirming methodology, culturally affirming mentoring is intentionally engineered to foster well-being in the face of unprecedented volatility and emotional labor generated through encounters with the politics of learning and working in institutions. We use Yosso’s (2005) theoretical framework on cultural wealth to present a critical point of reference for analyzing and re-representing the collective capital within our practice. Yosso’s framing of aspirations, language, family, social, navigation, and resistance acquired within communities serve as an asset-based approach to thinking through the wealth of knowledge and practices that both guide and advance cultural groups. We recognize our position within the multiple binds of gender, race, color, and nationality that uniquely define our histories and lived experiences.
Modes of Inquiry
A life story approach was used. We recognize the narration of the personal and professional experiences of women scholars as a form of “meaningful redemption when times get tough” (Bauer& DesAutels 2019, p. 126). We use Yosso’s (2005) framework on cultural wealth and a methodology of comparative collaboration (Authors et al., 2012) to analyze and re-present our life stories. Using thematic coding, we engage in a form of intimate inquiry, making the experiences of self, dissimilar (comparative) while entering
the experiences of the other through a re-familiarity with self, engaged with the other (collaboration).
Data Sources
We wrote individual life stories where we reflected on navigating the drama of the COVID 19 pandemic and where mentoring served as a means of resilience and recovery. The life story approach credits the ways in which the professional identities of women and their actions evolve through advocacy and social interaction (Järvenpää & Hänninen, 2018).
Results
Preliminary results suggest the importance of faculty communal practices where actions and words reciprocally strengthen self and others. Thus, culturally affirming mentoring centers on a spirit of inclusivity, collaboration, and collective identity. It holds cultural, personal, and professional identities in equilibrium and at times in conflict with self and others; giving rise to the dynamism of courage and self-preservation.
Scholarly significance of the study or work
Culturally affirming mentoring situates/contextualizes our own positionality as women, but also presents counter-narratives that draw on the strengths of our cultural knowledge within the practice of education. These communal relationships address personal and professional needs in an empowering environment; providing the tools needed to overcome the marginalization of a system further compromised by the traumas of COVID 19.

Authors