Colley, Helen. (2003). Mentoring for Social Inclusion: A Critical Approach to Nurturing Mentoring Relationships. Reviewed by Amy Garrett Dikkers, University of Minnesota

Colley, Helen. (2003). Mentoring for Social Inclusion: A Critical Approach to Nurturing Mentoring Relationships. London, UK: RoutledgeFalmer. 196 pp. $39.95     ISBN 0-415-31110-1 Reviewed by Amy Garrett Dikkers University of Minnesota March 9, 2005 Perhaps the best way to explore and review Helen Colley’s (2003) Mentoring for Social Inclusion: A critical approach to nurturing mentoring relationships is to note the author’s purpose for writing the book and keep that beside you as you read: I have written this book to bear witness to the complexity of real-life mentor relationships, and to the fact that they are not always happy. I have tried to explain the roots of the unhappiness I observed in a number of cases, pointing to the unrealistic expectations that policy-makers have of mentoring for social inclusion, and to the age-old assumption that carers – most often women – should nurture others in a self-sacrificing way. I have also tried to show how happier outcomes can be achieved, or at least made more possible (Colley, p. xiv). Reading the book with this in mind shows that Colley clearly achieves all aspects of her purpose for writing the book. She also manages to question the conventional ways of looking at mentoring programs, provide a review of the literature surrounding mentoring theories, engage readers with well-written case studies, and significantly redefine mentoring in the process. In Part I of Mentoring for Social Inclusion, Colley introduces the readers to mentoring in general, mentoring for social inclusion, and the specific type of mentoring portrayed in the case studies in later chapters, “engagement mentoring”. One of Colley’s main points throughout the book is that, in order to adequately discuss mentoring, one must effectively define it, specifically whether it is defined as a function or a relationship. Colley purports the choice of definition impacts the view of mentoring and each individual mentoring relationship. Throughout chapter two, Colley a) discusses the difficulty of finding one definition, b) explains the history of mentoring, beginning with the myth of Mentor from the Odyssey, c) details the dichotomy of thinking of mentoring as a function or a relationship, and d) discusses trends in the research around mentoring (providing a solid introductory literature review about mentoring). Colley is also clear from the start that this book is written in the shadow of her feminist background of study around power and gender. This point becomes important in the latter chapters of the book where she provides options for policy and practice for mentoring and offers a new definition for mentoring based on theories of power. The first two purposes of the book, a) to bear witness to the complexity of real-life mentor relationships and b) to speak to unsuccessful or problematic mentor relationships, are addressed in Part II of the book, “The mentor relationships”. In this section, Colley describes one example of an engagement mentoring scheme, a program called New Beginnings, designed for disaffected youth, where she conducted case studies of individual mentoring relationships. The New Beginnings mentoring scheme was based in the business of training and employment. The program directors hoped that students engaged in mentoring would “adopt values, attitudes and behaviour that would render them ‘employable’” (p. 57). The mentors were trained undergraduate students and mentors and mentees were all volunteers. Throughout the chapters of Part II, Colley clearly points out the difficulties with the New Beginnings program in an engaging read where theory and analysis are nicely interspersed with quotes and interview excerpts. Some serious problems with the New Beginnings program, as detailed by Colley, are a) the disconnect between expectations of those in charge of the mentoring program and the training that the mentors received, b) the vagueness of the explanations regarding mentoring given to potential mentees, and c) the highly regulated environment in which mentoring sessions were supposed to take place (at the program center, under the watchful eye of program directors). In further chapters, Colley explains how each of these circumstances influences the eventual failure of many of the individual mentoring relationships and the New Beginnings scheme as a whole. Chapter 4 details resistance and agency on the part of mentees, explaining power struggles between the mentor and mentee, as well as the wider power relationships within the organization that impacted the success of the mentoring program. Again, Colley tells the story of the mentors and mentees in the New Beginnings program while analyzing the situation and providing a critique of the effectiveness of the program. Colley balances her discussion of the limitations of the engagement mentoring model and the New Beginnings program with the potential for success in mentoring relationships if the power dynamics of the relationships are taken into account. Chapter 5 relates mentor experiences, showing how mentors benefit from participation in a mentoring scheme, as well as how their own dispositions can be altered from their experiences as mentors. One oft used tool to recruit potential mentors is the claim that participants will benefit from the relationships themselves by increasing their own social and cultural capital. Colley discusses this idea and also explains how she sees mentors as vehicles for empowering young people, indeed helping them acquire employability, and alter young people’s dispositions. Again, in the case of New Beginnings, these positive outcomes were not as clear, especially due to the “dogmatic structure” of the scheme which limited the growth of the mentoring relationships (p. 117). Chapter 6 provides an in-depth analysis of one specific mentor-mentee relationship. The case of mentor Yvonne and her mentee Lisa is one where the “two young women appeared to be going around in circles, failing to make progress, and unable either to draw conclusions, or to draw their relationship to a conclusion” (p. 120). Colley explains the positions of Yvonne and Lisa at the beginning of their mentoring relationship. She presents the challenges of a mentor-mentee relationship borne from inadequate training, no clear definition of mentoring shared by the two people involved, and the influence of personal problems on the relationship. After detailing the case of Yvonne and Lisa, Colley returns to her key assumptions and analyzes the relationship through a psychological analysis of mentoring while refocusing on power dynamics. At this point in the book, it is unclear if the cases Colley relates show a failure of mentoring or engagement mentoring, in general, or simply explain the failures of this particular program. However, after reading Part III, “A new analysis of mentoring,” it is clear that Colley sees the difficulties found in the case studies of mentor-mentee relationships at New Beginning as being indicative of the problems of typical practices of engagement mentoring as a whole. Chapter 7 offers a new analysis of mentoring, one that takes power dynamics into consideration and applies different theories of power to mentoring as a whole. Colley tests those theories against case data in the earlier sections of the book. After determining that existing theories do not completely apply to engagement mentoring, Colley turns to post-structural analyses, explaining that power can be both productive and repressive at the same time. Here is where Colley’s background in feminism and power structures comes through strongest. Here is also where practitioners who are seeking answers to questions of how to create successful mentoring programs might find themselves skipping through chapter 7 in order to reach chapter 8, which addresses the third main purpose of the book, showing options for policy and practice. Colley’s new definition of mentoring is based on Bourdieu’s theory of power, which she uses to show how structure and agency interact in the cases and to offer a new theorization of engagement mentoring. Bourdieu views a field such as engagement mentoring at three levels: the global field of power, the objective relations between actors in the field, and the individual dispositions of those involved in the mentoring relationship. Colley explains these three levels of analysis for engagement mentoring by returning to the stories she tells in previous chapters. She concludes the discussion of engagement mentoring with her new definition: engagement mentoring is a “process of emotional labour that seeks to work upon and reform the habitus of both mentor and mentee” (p. 159). Application of this definition “suggests major flaws in policies to develop engagement mentoring as a key intervention for social inclusion, and calls into question the practices these policies promote” (p. 159). In the final chapter of the book Colley uses this analysis to address broad principles and effective methods for mentoring for social exclusion. She also makes recommendations for those directly involved and presents an agenda for further research. Through this book, Colley hopes to impact policy, practice, and research regarding mentoring for social inclusion. Chapter 8 includes a summary of her main findings regarding successful mentoring experiences, including the following: Young people value mentor relationships which they choose and negotiate themselves; Mentoring schemes often have unrealistic goals; Those implementing mentoring programs should realize that mentoring results in soft outcomes, such as increased confidence, better health, and higher aspirations; Mentoring should be less directive; and Two main policy shifts are needed: 1) towards thinking about social exclusion as a societal, not individual, inequality and 2) changing attitudes towards socially excluded youth. Perhaps the most solid aspect of this chapter, from a practitioner standpoint, is that each recommendation for practice is paired with questions for reflection on existing practice. For example, one recommendation is “Engage in critical reflective practice”. Rather than simply explain this idea and then move on to her next point, Colley follows the explanation with some questions for program directors, mentors, and mentees to contemplate, such as: To what extent does the mentoring programme create space for critical reflection and welcome the challenges from mentors and mentees that might ensue? Why have you become involved in mentoring? What aims do you hope to achieve through mentor relationships, and what are the aims of others? (p. 173). These reflective questions can stimulate discussion and planning within organizations as program directors and staff or policymakers analyze their current mentoring programs or consider implementing new ones. As Colley states in her conclusion, there are many stories that are untold and many angles that are not addressed or pursued in her book. However, Mentoring for Social Inclusion fills a void in the study of mentoring programs, a void where little analysis or solid research has been conducted. Colley states, “If this book creates space for critical discussion and debate about mentoring, it will have been a success” (p. 180). Although the book would benefit from summaries at the ends of sections, especially in some of the more theoretical chapters, it is clear to this reader that Mentoring for Social Inclusion can easily stimulate discussion and inspire those working with mentoring programs. Hopefully the inspiration will lead all those involved in a mentoring program to investigate and reflect upon the purposes and practices of their programs – in order to empower mentors and mentees and nurture those mentoring relationships. Amy Garrett Dikkers is a PhD candidate in the Educational Policy and Administration department at the University of Minnesota. Her dissertation work is a multiple case study of programs for the education of Roma students in Germany. Her main area of interest is in education of all children in extremely difficult circumstances, including minority students, street children, refugees, and other groups of children not always served in formal school settings across the world.