Can Mentoring Promote Self-esteem and School Connectedness? An Evaluation of the Mentor-UP Project
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Date
2020-04
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Psychological Inervention
Abstract
Research in the United States has shown that youth mentoring is a promising strategy for increasing self-esteem and school connectedness in at-risk youth. There has been little confirmation of those findings internationally. The current study evaluates the impact of mentoring by trained university students on children's self-esteem and school connectedness compared to schoolmates not involved in the program. Mentor-UP is a school- and community-based weekly mentoring program implemented in northern Italy over a period of seven months. Participants (209 students - 34 in the experimental group and 175 in the comparison group - aged between 11 and 13,56% male, 27% immigrants) reported their levels of self-esteem and school connectedness at the beginning and at the end of the program. Results showed a significant increase in mentees' self-esteem compared to the control group, while the difference in school-connectedness was nonsignificant. The findings support the effectiveness of Mentor-UP in nurturing youth's self-esteem.
Description
Keywords
Youth mentoring, Self-esteem, School connectedness, Italy, Prevention programs
Citation
Marino, C. , Santinello, M., Lenzi, M., Santoro, P., Bergamin, M., Gaboardi, M., Calcagnì, A., Altoè, G., and Perkins, D. D. (2020). Can Mentoring Promote Self-esteem and School Connectedness? An Evaluation of the Mentor-UP Project. Psychosocial Intervention, 29(1) 1 - 8. https://doi.org/10.5093/pi2019a13 Correspondence: claudia.marino@unipd.it (C. Marino).