Natural Mentors in the Lives of African-American Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents

158 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.The current study explores natural mentor relationships in the lives of inner-city African-American pregnant and parenting adolescents. Participants were enrolled in an alternative public high school for pregnant and parenting teenagers. A 2 year longitudinal study was conducted to examine the influence of natural mentor relationships on the future outlook and educational and occupational attainment of pregnant and parenting adolescents. Natural mentor relationships were examined as a source of support and strain in the lives of youth. Support and strain that young women received from their mentor relationships was compared to the support and strain that they received from their relationships with their mothers. Changes in support and strain provided by participants' mentors and their mothers over 2 years postpartum were explored. Findings suggest that mentoring relationships exert significant positive effects. Young women who retained the same mentor over the course of the 2 years were found to experience a decreased likelihood of school drop-out in comparison to young women who had no mentor relationship over the course of 2 years. Further, young women who had a mentor relationship at baseline were found to experience improved occupational status (holding a job or continuing with school) 2 years postpartum relative to young women who had no mentor relationship at baseline.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD