Does Mentorship Differ between Adolescents Living in Poor and Non-Poor Neighborhoods?

Background/Purpose: Mentors have a positive influence on adolescents pursuing higher education by acting as successful role models and providing academic support to them as they transition to adulthood. Because mentoring relationships are important, schools and social services organizations often provide formal mentoring programs to adolescents. However, most adolescents develop informal mentoring relationships outside of these formal programs with mentors such as relatives, friends, teachers, and neighbors. These informal relationships differ from formal ones in that they tend to occur through adolescents and their parents’ social networks. Thus, adolescents’ access to informal mentors may be associated with their social networks.

Because neighborhoods are an important context in which people build social networks, neighborhoods may affect informal mentoring relationships. For example, in poor neighborhoods, adolescents and their parents may have fewer social networks that are limited to their local neighborhoods, and there may be fewer successful role models available within their networks compared to their counterparts in non-poor neighborhoods. This study examines: 1) whether living in a poor neighborhood is associated with a lower likelihood of having an informal mentor; 2) whether types of mentors differ between adolescents in poor and non-poor neighborhoods; and 3) whether types of support that adolescents receive from their mentors differ between poor and non-poor neighborhoods.

Methods: This study uses wave 1-3 in-home surveys and neighborhood data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The sample consists of 14,322 adolescents living in 1,884 census tracts. Approximately 15% of adolescents lived in poor neighborhoods (census tracts with more than 20% of families with income below poverty level). Having an informal mentor is measured by having non-parent adults who make an important positive difference in the adolescents’ lives. Type of mentor is measured by whether the mentor is the adolescent’s family members (e.g., older siblings), teachers, friends, and other community members. This study uses multilevel logistic and multinomial regressions to estimate the associations between neighborhood poverty and informal mentorship (i.e., having a mentor and type of mentor), accounting for adolescents’ and families’ characteristics. To better understand types of supports provided by mentors, content analysis is used to look for themes in the data derived from the open-ended mentorship questions.

Results: Our results suggest that adolescents in poor neighborhoods are less likely to have a mentor (OR=0.68, p<.001) compared to adolescents in non-poor neighborhoods. Comparing to adolescents in non-poor neighborhoods, adolescents in poor neighborhoods are less likely to have teachers (RRR=0.73, p<.001), friends (RRR=0.80, p<.001), and community members (RRR=0.66, p<.001) versus family members as their mentors.

Preliminary findings from the content analysis suggest that specific supports provided by mentors include giving academic advice and being positive role models. Future analyses will examine whether mentors’ supports differ between poor and non-poor neighborhoods.

Conclusions/Implications: The findings highlight the importance of neighborhoods with regard to adolescents’ informal mentorship. Policy and program implications include providing formal mentorship and promoting access to informal mentors outside family members for adolescents in poor neighborhoods to pursue higher education.