Masters Thesis

Restoring hope within an invisible population: humanizing pedagogy through critical mentorship

This thesis project will describe how I became part of Mentoring to Overcome Struggles And Inspire Courage, or MOSAIC, a youth mentoring program based out of California State University Northridge, as well as the effect mentors have on continuation high school students, both at an academic level and on a personal level. I have worked with the program for seven years. I began as a mentor during my undergraduate studies and am currently the program director. I made the decision to work with MOSAIC due to my own experiences as an at-risk "Latino" youth. By means of an auto-ethnography, I will provide a testament to the personal transformations I have witnessed as a result of a critical humanistic approach to mentorship, which is a form of mentoring I have developed throughout the years I have been involved in the program. I will describe the changes in (a) university students, (b) (including the researcher) and (c) "at-risk" continuation high school students. My sociological observations and findings will be discussed in relation to my own personal growth as an "at-risk" youth, student, MOSAIC mentor, university instructor/educator, MOSAIC program director and sociologist. I will concurrently discuss the unique mentoring approach MOSAIC mentors utilize as tools for academic engagement, such as art, poetry, Hip Hop, and other trends in popular culture. Through this auto-ethnography, I hope to clarify my own pedagogy and possible things that need to change within the public educational system. Ultimately, I hope to provide an alternative mentoring approach so others can model this form of mentorship to those working with struggling students, so that they can meet the developmental needs of "invisible" youth populations.

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