Race, Ethnicity, and Culture
Matching youth and adults based on shared interests is a strong predictor of successful mentoring relationships—having shared interests allows participants to more easily establish common ground.
This shared understanding might also be established by perceptions of ethnic or cultural similarity, but research doesn’t demonstrate that this always happens, or that it’s as strong of a predictor of quality relationships as shared interests.
However, matching based on shared ethnic or racial identity may be particularly important if the mentee:
- Requests it
- Has limited access to adults who’ve turned similar life experience into positive growth
- Has a negative self-image tied to his or her life experience
- Has goals that are best supported by an adult “who’s been there”