Thesis advisor: Heather T. Rowan-Kenyon / Studies of college students’ development indicate the collegiate experience can have a negative impact on undergraduate women’s self-esteem (Zuckerman et al., 2016). Research also suggests mentorship programs that provide marginalized groups, such as undergraduate women, with faculty or administrative adult mentors have the potential to improve outcomes for the marginalized group (Crisp et al., 2017). However, it is important to consider the mentors may struggle against the same systemic marginalization they are working to help their undergraduate mentees successfully navigate. The Brazilian philosopher, Paulo Freire, built the concept of “critical consciousness” to explain how those who are oppressed come to understand the systemic nature of their oppression and subsequently seek to change the factors that lead to it (Freire, 1970). This grounded theory study sought to understand if mentors develop a critical consciousness of their own oppression through their involvement in a mentorship program designed to combat the institutionalized oppression that undergraduate women face. Nineteen interviews and two focus groups of mentors who served in the program were conducted. The following research questions guided this study: (a) How do mentors perceive that their involvement in the Summit program has impacted their awareness and understanding of institutionalized sexism and its effects? (b) How do mentors perceive that their involvement in the Summit program has impacted their motivation or ability to effect change related to institutionalized sexism? (c) In what ways have mentors enacted change on behalf of themselves or other women at the institution that they perceive to be connected to their involvement in Summit?
The theory constructed from the data suggests a varying effect of the impact of serving as a mentor in the mentorship program on participants’ development of Critical Consciousness. Participants’ progression through the components of Critical Consciousness was complex when they considered their own experiences as women at the institution. Data indicates the community of the mentorship program played a fundamental role in participants’ development of Critical Consciousness of institutional sexism at the institution. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_109367 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Dalton, Kathryn Anne |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). |
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