Breaking Barriers: Transformative Practices that Empower Students
Abstract
Talk 11, Session 4: Breaking Barriers: Transformative Practices that Empower Students
Mentoring & Empowering Graduate students
"In this presentation I will discuss a graduate mentoring approach and specific strategies that can help empower doctoral students, particularly in the field of educational leadership. I use critical self-reflection, analysis of previous mentoring sessions, mentoring materials that I have created, and students’ reflective essays about their mentoring process with me. I will talk about four relational conditions that need to be constructed in the mentor-mentee to foster graduate student empowerment. Additionally, I will describe and analyze four instructional practices through which these four relational foundations can be constructed as part of the mentor-mentee relationship and the writing of the dissertation. Finally, I will discuss four developmental outcomes that graduates of a doctoral program in educational leadership identify as indicators of an empowered professional self. The conceptual framework guiding this discussion includes the notion of self-authorship, psychological empowerment, and cultural wealth."
Virginia Montero Hernandez, Associate Professor, CSU Stanislaus