Cross-Cultural Mentor Effectiveness and African American Male Students

Abstract

This study examined the effects of mentor ethnicity, cultural sensitivity, and student level of cultural mistrust on perceptions of mentor credibility and cultural competence. African American men attending west coast community colleges listened to a tape-recorded mentoring session in which the faculty mentor was described as eitherAfrican American or European American and was portrayed as either culturally responsive or culturally unresponsive. Mentor ethnicity, as well as an interaction between mentor ethnicity and participant level of cultural mistrust, were found to be related to perceptions of mentor credibility/effectiveness. In addition, mentor ethnicity and cultural sensitivity were found to be related to perceptions of mentor cross-cultural competence.