Examining African American and Caucasian Female Proteges\u27 Perspectives about the Relationship of their Mentors\u27 Performance of Mentoring Functions and Race

This researcher examined the perspectives of African American and Caucasian female protégés regarding the five career development mentoring functions of sponsoring, coaching, protecting, challenging, and exposing; and the six psychosocial mentoring functions of role modeling, acceptance, counseling, friendship, socializing, and parenting to examine African American and Caucasian female protégés’ perspectives on their mentors’ mentoring behaviors. The researcher also examined the perspectives of African American and Caucasian female protégés regarding the importance of race in their mentoring dyads. The results indicated that no statistically significant differences existed between the African American and Caucasian female protégés within the five career development mentoring functions. Statistically significant differences were identified within the psychosocial mentoring functions of acceptance and parenting. Statistically significant differences also existed between the African American and Caucasian female protégés’ overall scores for career development mentoring and psychosocial support mentoring regarding the importance of the mentor’s race. In both cases, the African American female protégés’ scores indicated that they rated the importance of the mentor’s race significantly higher than the Caucasian female participants rated the importance of the mentor’s race for career development and psychosocial support mentoring