Exploring the lived experiences of mutuality in diverse formal faculty mentoring partnerships through the lens of mentoring schemas

Abstract

Mentoring programs continue to be an important HRD tool as they provide faculty, regardless of career stage, an opportunity for professional learning and development. However, the traditional hierarchical mentor–mentee model may limit the quality and utility of these relationships. A solution provided by emerging literature is the relational mentoring perspective that calls for a mutual approach to mentoring. Nonetheless, mutual learning and growth in diverse mentoring might be difficult for underrepresented faculty mentees and their mentors. Our study offers a unique contribution to the mentoring literature by identifying how mentoring schemas may guide experiences of the factors that challenge and cultivate mutuality within diverse formal mentoring relationships. Findings indicated that difference in career stage and culture/power-distance challenged the mentoring partners' ability to experience mutuality, especially if they had a traditional mentoring schema. Interestingly, they managed to overcome these challenges and experience mutuality in their mentoring partnerships if they were paired with a senior mentoring partner with a relational mentoring schema who was skilled to nurture mutual learning and growth. Also, similarity between mentoring partners in deep-level diversity characteristics such as research interest, work styles, and approach to career building facilitated experiences of mutuality. Guided by the findings, we recommend that program designers solicit information on how cultural identities might have shaped mentoring schemas as part of the matching process and engage mentoring participants in a discussion about how these differences may influence the way mutuality is conceptualized and practiced early in the mentoring process.