Mentoring Relationships in the Lives of Boys and Young Men

Rhodes reviews research on access to positive adult role models and formal mentoring for boys and young men, and proposes ways to make mentoring more effective and available. She discusses programs’ shortage of male volunteers, relationship-based recruitment, peer and cross-age mentoring, hybrid models, and goal-focused support. The review notes evidence that caring, consistent adults can buffer academic, social-emotional and identity-related risks, while mentoring cannot resolve structural disadvantage.

The review synthesizes program evaluations and meta-analyses and discusses a large mentoring program’s findings, while identifying differences among mentoring models and the limits of scaling. It connects directly to Dylan Ratigan’s ‘The Power of Young Men’: loyalty and intensity need relationships, responsibility and a constructive purpose. It is a review and policy synthesis rather than a new randomized test; gendered assumptions and family-structure claims require careful treatment, and mentoring is not a substitute for resources or support for young people of any gender.