A GROUNDED THEORY OF EXPERIENCING AND PERCEIVING YOUTH MENTORING AS A PROCESS OF “MIXED EMOTIONS”

Many youths from disadvantaged backgrounds globally lack positive role models and meaningful relationships with supportive adults within their families and communities. Youths’ involvement in relationships with caring adults, such as mentors, promotes their well-being. However, little is known about youth mentoring relationships in some parts of the world, particularly Zambia. This constructivist grounded theory study aimed to develop a substantive theory that explains the experiences and perceptions of mentors and mentees in Zambia. The sample included mentors and mentees who had been in relationships for at least one year. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five mentors aged 31 to 68 and four mentees aged 18 to 20. The inductive, iterative and constant comparative method guided the coding, memoing, and theoretical sampling processes and led to the co-construction of four categories. This paper focuses on one category: “Experiencing and perceiving mentorship as a process of ‘mixed feelings’”. Mentees felt mentoring supported their emotional and psychological well-being, which enhanced their resilience and was perceived as a way of surviving. Mentors expressed that mentoring enabled them to support youths beyond their professional roles and enhanced their self-awareness, knowledge and reputation, which increased their self-worth and confidence and the desire to continue changing youths´ lives. Challenges included meeting time issues, ineffective communication, and confusion in differentiating between the mentor´s professional and mentoring roles, which caused difficulty in mentor-mentee interactions. They felt overwhelmed by their mentees´ difficult circumstances and worked with limited resources. They also felt unrecognised and unsupported. Findings suggest priority issues and potential logical solutions, such as preliminary and ongoing mentor training, recognising and supporting youth mentoring, and providing essential primary resources to disadvantaged youths in Zambia to enable effective mentoring.