Undergraduate STEM Students Social and Emotional Learning through Mentoring in a STEM Youth Program

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to delineate how mentor-mentee relationship building processes within a STEM youth mentoring program called STUDIO: Build Our World, are supported by particular social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. STUDIO: Build Our World is an afterschool program that supports low income, immigrant, and refugee youth to build interest, motivation, and identification with STEM subjects and to learn more about STEM college and careers. This paper presents a handbook as one of the resources for the new mentors to build capacity in SEL and to understand various mentoring scenarios as they enter the STUDIO program. In addition, a synthetic review of the literature on STEM youth mentoring programs reveals the limited research on mentors’ learning processes and SEL. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to this research gap and examines the mentors’ narratives to highlight how mentors are engaging in SEL through their interactions with youth.