Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between mentoring programs, parent involvement and student social interaction. Influenced by Epstein’s (1995) School, Family and Community Partnerships, this study revealed when teachers are used as mentors, teachers must be dedicated to the mentoring process. That process for mentors means the onus of increasing parent involvement fell on the mentors. By increasing parent involvement and communication between parents and teachers, students improved academically and behavioral infractions decreased. Parents felt less intimidated when dealing with the schooling process. Students formed trusting relationships and became comfortable when approaching parents and teachers for help when faced with academic difficulties. Teachers formed open lines of communication with the students and parents.
Results from this study were generated through interviews using a 19 question interview protocol. These results lead to the following recommendations for stakeholders. Administrators should focus on integrating practices that generate opportunities for students to exercise personal control and autonomy as well as integrating structured peer interaction. Mentors must work hard to change the negative perspectives some parent’s have about interacting with school personnel. Recommendations for future researchers to be considered are: selecting an equal amount of male and female students’, this may yield different results for male students than female students in areas of development and assimilation to the program. Consider collecting data from two different mentoring programs, each from different school environments such as a district of low social economic status and a middle school in a neighboring community that is well above middle class.

Keywords:

Mentoring, parent involvement, student social interaction, minority mentoring, middle school mentoring.