Encouraging Bicultural Identity: Differing Cultures of Mentors and Youth

While it is important for youth to feel as though they can connect their culture with education, in the form of having administration, teachers, and mentors who come from their community, how do those who don't share the culture of the youth serve positive roles? Many college students, who have come from high income backgrounds or who identify differently culturally and racially from the youth they hope to work with, tend to feel hesitant when working in low income communities. This breakdown in communication and automatic barrier can lead to ineffectiveness in a mentor's relationship with youth. So how can this be addressed?

The goal of many after school programs is to form relationships of empowerment for youth who feel dis-empowered in the school setting. The worst thing that can happen in the relationships between a student and a mentor is this idea of "social mirroring". In this scenario, it invalidates the sense of self of the student, by expecting inferior students to suppress their culture under the stereotypesd notions of acculturating oneself to the values and ways of the dominant.

When one is faced with cultural differences, both adult and child should use this as an opportunity to engage in honest dialogue and gentle acculturation of each other's worldviews. In this way, each serving as teacher and learner simultaneously, youth and adults can move towards a bicultural identity. This involves the active incorporation of mentor and youth of what is learned from the other into their own personal identity and experience.