1. What is intercultural mentoring?
Mentoring is a rather broad term referring to a range of activities where support is given, one to another, through appropriate training. A recent development in tutoring in Europe is the rise of intercultural mentoring (or tutoring) aimed at limiitng the distress and difficulties that may be experienced by immigrant students from the early years of school through to university. These students have to face the challenges of learning a new language and understanding a new culture while having to deal with a school system different to the one they came from. It must be noted that not all migrant students will experience these difficulties, therefore such approaches should be used only where deemed appropriate and necessary. In general, intercultural mentoring consists of encouraging students from different cultures to collaborate by working in pairs. One student may be from the host culture and the other the newly arrived immigrant, or they may both be from the same culture of origin but have achieved different degrees of integration into the host society or school.
2. What are the benefits of intercultural mentoring?
Empirical evidence shows that young people born abroad are largely over-represented among the early leavers from education and training in many European countries (European Commission, 2008).
The introduction of older or peer students with a migrant background into secondary schools has proved to be a valuable resource for the whole education system. On the one hand it is valuable for migrant students who feel the lack of emotional and cognitive resources to face everyday challenges: studying and learning difficulties, academic inclusion or re-orientation, passing tests and exams, moving to higher education and encountering new social and cultural realities. On the other, working as a mentor for peers or younger students represents an important and engaging experience of assumption of direct educational responsibility, care of others and a concrete exercise of active citizenship, so also has beneficial effects on those who take up this role.
Many studies, mainly in the United States, have highlighted the benefits of tutoring programmes. A meta-analysis of findings from 65 independent evaluations of school tutoring programmes in the States (Cohen, Kulik and Kulik, 1982) shows that such programmes have positive effects both on the academic performance and on the attitudes of those who receive tutoring. In addition there are positive effects for those who act as tutors. Consistently positive effects have been found in different countries, across different age groups (from young children to adults) and in different areas of the curriculum (Higgins, Kokotsaki and Coe, 2011), so an investment in such approaches would seem worthwhile.
The opportunity to introduce/reinforce the role of the Intercultural Mentor in secondary schools also derives from recognized and widespread crucial issues in European school systems: schools' main failure, with the highest incidence of drop-out, is during the move from primary to secondary school. This is a crucial me for every student, marked by concerns and expectations. Usually the fears are about changing friendships, relationships with older children, new subjects and teachers and the complexity of new learning. These are accentuated for boys and girls with a migrant background and particularly for new arrivals, who are often more vulnerable. It is mainly to offer support to them during this move up to secondary school that tutoring becomes relevant and offers benefits.
3. Competencies and skills of mentors
A mentor can be:
- a student with a migrant background (personal or family; immigrant or second generation and/or nave student) enrolled in the final years of secondary school (15–18 years);
- a recognized foreign or native student, esteemed by companions, with a positive scholastic and social background;
The mentor should be:
- committed to diversity and overcoming stereotypes and prejudices;
- knowledgable about school mechanisms and school rules, both explicit and tacit;
- empathic i.e. somehow capable of 'walking in a mentee's shoes' and who understands the difficulties that his/her peers can meet in interpersonal relationships and study
- Is able to employ active listening techniques;
- Has good communication and public speaking capacities.
4. Learning e-Assessment
- assessment tasks, which promote the kind of learning needed for the workplace of the twenty-first century;
- active student participation (self-assessment, peer assessment)
- “feedback as feed-forward”.
When ICT and assessment are integrated, one can speak of “e-assessment”, as expressed by Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).