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The Role of Mentor Type and Timing in Predicting Educational Attainment

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Abstract

Having an adult mentor during adolescence has been found to predict academic success. Building on previous work, the present study examined interactions between the type of mentor (i.e., kin, teacher, friend, or community), the time that mentor became important (i.e., before, during, or after high school), and the ethnicity of the protégé in predicting educational attainment in young adulthood. Analyses used Waves III and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 2,409). Participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 27 (M = 21.75, SD = 1.79). The sample was 56.7 % female and nationally representative of ethnic diversity. Analyses showed that having a teacher-mentor was more predictive of educational attainment than having other types of mentors and that overall, having a mentor after high school predicts the most educational attainment. Kin- and community-mentors appeared to be more important to educational attainment during and before high school, respectively. Findings were consistent across ethnic groups. Overall, results highlight the value of teacher-mentors throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood and our study further suggests that different types of mentors may be particularly useful at specific points in development.

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Acknowledgments

VF conceived of the study, participated in statistical analyses, and drafted the manuscript; LWL participated in statistical analyses and interpretation, and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth. No direct support was received from Grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

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  1. School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, Claremont Graduate University, 1227 N. Dartmouth Ave., Claremont, CA, 91711, USA

    Veronica M. Fruiht & Laura Wray-Lake

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  1. Veronica M. Fruiht
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  2. Laura Wray-Lake
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Correspondence to Veronica M. Fruiht.

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Fruiht, V.M., Wray-Lake, L. The Role of Mentor Type and Timing in Predicting Educational Attainment. J Youth Adolescence 42, 1459–1472 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-012-9817-0

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