The Wiley International Handbook of Mentoring

9Synthesis of Mentoring Paradigms

Rubén Garza¹ and Beverly J. Irby²

¹ Texas State University, USA

² Texas A&M University, USA

The mentoring process, whether informal or formal, involves a relationship between two or more individuals. While mentoring models may be influenced by context and purpose, as elucidated by authors in this section, the phenomenon of mentoring has also been framed within different theories to examine why there seems to be an unclear definition of mentoring and the difficulties associated with adopting a common meaning. Numerous paradigms are brought forth in this first section of the Handbook from historical, epistemological, theoretical, practical, and international paradigmatic perspectives.

Dominguez and Kochan explored how mentoring “is a developmental relationship grounded in and molded by philosophical, historical, and sociological factors.” The authors present an argument for the need to clearly define mentoring and its implications for research, but at the same time provide an explanation for the difficulty of adopting one term that can be applied in different contexts and purposes. Although the authors identify five common elements used in defining mentoring as a developmental relationship, research has yet to clearly separate this type of mentoring from other relationships such as those established in counseling or advising.

Irby, Abderahman, Lara‐Alecio, and Allen presented a new discovery. Almost everyone who writes or talks of mentoring begins ...