The Impact of Cross-Race Mentoring for “Ideal” PhD Careers in Sociology

Abstract

This article reports the results of a study of the impact of two kinds of mentoring, as in individual, instrumental mentoring by white male advisors versus supportive/communal, homophilous (same race/ethnicity) mentoring on the likelihood of minority scholars having an “ideal” or “archetypal” career trajectory when compared to two other control groups. Using unobtrusive data, we test a series of hypotheses concerning the likelihood of attaining selected aspects of an “ideal” career including employment at a research-extensive institution, scholarly publications, tenure, grants, and disciplinary recognition. We find that having a white male instrumental advisor increases the likelihood of having an “ideal” career for participants in the American Sociological Association's (ASA) national pre-doctoral Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) who have the advantage of having access to both types of mentoring when compared to a random group of largely white PhDs.