Madison Ramsey
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): Ariana Munoz-Salgado
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 1 (9:00am – 9:50am)
Authors: Madison Ramsey, Ariana Munoz-Salgado
Abstract
Supportive and respectful mentor relationships in academia are crucial, since students with advisors strong in socioemotional mentorship report improved well-being, academic performance, and belonging in the program (Barnes, Williams, & Archer, 2010; Daniels et al., 2019). While there has been extensive research conducted on mentorship, very little of this research examines same-race or same-gender relationships within mentorship. Yet same-race/gender relationships are important to examine because the lack of mentor diversity in academia can make it harder for underrepresented graduate students to find mentors that look like them, which can ultimately affect their mentorship experience (Zambrana et al., 2015). We thus focus on graduate students of underrepresented backgrounds (e.g., people of color, women, non-binary students), examining whether graduate students that have a race-match or gender-match with their faculty mentors (i.e., being of the same race or gender) report better mentorship relationships than students who do not have a race/gender-match. Using a correlational survey design, graduate student participants (N = 459) reported their mentorship relationships with their current faculty advisors (whether they felt supported and respected by their advisors). We predicted that those in race-matched (or gender-matched) relationships will report higher support and respect from their mentors than those in non-race-match (or non-gender-matched) relationships. We found that race-matched graduate students of color reported slightly higher support and respect from their advisor compared to those who had an advisor of color from a different race, but results were not significant (p = .446 for support and p = .289 for respect). Graduate students who were gender-matched reported slightly higher support and respect from their advisor compared to those who had an advisor from a different gender, but results were not significant (p = .456 and p= .674 respectively). This research can expose mentorship inadequacies that result from a lack of mentor diversity and can provide crucial evidence for the need to increase racial and gender diversity in faculty mentors.
