Culturally responsive mentoring builds confidence and belonging for Black students
Updated Aug 11, 2026
Mentoring works differently when students do not have to explain the barriers they face before they can ask for help. For Black students considering doctoral study, that difference can shape whether research careers feel possible, navigable, and meant for them. In Studies in Higher Education, Ifedapo Francis Awolowo, Oluwatoyin Dosumu, Femi Olawoyin, Adenike Abidoye and Oluwaseun Ajao examine that difference in "The impact of personalised mentorship on the academic, personal, and professional development of black students in UK higher education". For UK universities, the paper matters because it shows how culturally responsive mentoring can address some of the same pressures visible in research on conditional belonging among minority ethnic students.
Context and research question
Black students remain underrepresented in UK postgraduate research, and generic encouragement does not remove the structural, relational, and informational barriers behind that pattern. Students may need practical guidance on research careers, but they may also need mentors who recognise how race shapes confidence, opportunity, and a sense of being entitled to pursue doctoral study.
The paper studies the Accomplished Study Programme in Research Excellence, known as ASPIRE. The programme was designed by Black academics for Black and Black heritage students and combines personalised mentoring with research development, career preparation, and wellbeing support. Its underlying question is practical: what changes when mentoring reflects students' lived experience rather than asking them to adapt to a standard support model?
The authors draw on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and listening rooms with ASPIRE participants. They interpret those accounts through Ubuntu, an African philosophy centred on shared humanity, relationality, and collective uplift. This approach treats students' descriptions of confidence, capability, networks, and belonging as evidence in their own right. It complements wider work on what ethnic-minority students mean by belonging, where social recognition and the freedom to participate without self-editing matter alongside formal academic integration.
Key findings
Shared identity and mutual recognition made mentoring relationships more credible. The study presents culturally aligned mentoring as more than demographic matching. Students encountered mentors who could recognise racialised barriers without requiring a lengthy explanation or treating those barriers as individual deficits. That created a stronger basis for trust, honest discussion, and help-seeking.
Confidence grew alongside research capability. Participants described mentoring as supporting self-efficacy, academic engagement, and the skills needed to imagine and pursue research. The paper summarises this relationship clearly:
"culturally aligned mentoring relationships cultivate self-efficacy, academic engagement, and strategic career planning"
That finding matters because confidence is not presented as a motivational extra. It develops through access to informed guidance, constructive relationships, and opportunities to practise the work of a researcher. For widening participation teams, the practical signal is that skills development and identity affirmation can reinforce each other.
Mentoring also made career pathways easier to navigate. The paper links personalised support with career readiness, strategic planning, and access to networks. These are areas where informal knowledge often matters: understanding how doctoral applications work, identifying appropriate opportunities, and knowing which questions to ask. A mentoring relationship can therefore make hidden expectations more visible, giving students a clearer route from interest to action.
Belonging came from relationships, not institutional messaging alone. The study describes networks of belonging built through shared identity, mutual respect, and collective uplift. This is important for universities that promote inclusion through campaigns but leave students to navigate research cultures alone. A student can understand the formal route into postgraduate study and still feel that the route was not designed with them in mind.
The paper locates the problem in systems as well as individuals. Its argument is not that Black students need mentoring because they lack ambition or resilience. Culturally responsive support addresses racial inequity and underrepresentation by changing access to relationships, knowledge, and networks. That distinction protects mentoring from becoming a remedial intervention and positions it as part of a wider institutional responsibility.
Practical implications
First, universities should design mentoring around trust, choice, and continuity. Shared identity may help a relationship begin with greater recognition, but it does not guarantee a good match. Institutions still need clear expectations, trained mentors, appropriate boundaries, and a way for students to request a different match without penalty. The benefit is a support relationship students can use honestly rather than one they simply attend.
Second, mentoring should connect personal encouragement to concrete academic and career routes. Sessions should help students build research skills, understand doctoral funding and applications, develop networks, and make realistic plans. This does not mean turning mentors into admissions advisers or counsellors. It means joining up relational support with the opportunities and specialist services students need, so confidence leads to informed action.
Third, universities should involve students in the design and review of mentoring programmes. Existing evidence on co-designing peer mentoring shows why boundaries, timing, communication, and mentor support can be missed in a top-down model. Light-touch workshops and open-text check-ins can test whether a scheme feels accessible and relevant to different students. The result is a mentoring offer shaped by lived experience rather than institutional assumptions.
Fourth, institutions should analyse mentoring and belonging feedback by cohort and demographic without flattening differences within groups. Ask whether students can find a trusted person, whether guidance reflects their goals, and what makes support easier or harder to use. Student Voice Analytics can group recurring comments about mentoring, research confidence, belonging, and career support, while a clear student comment analysis governance checklist helps teams handle sensitive subgroup evidence responsibly. This gives widening participation and PGR teams a clearer view of where relational support is working and where access remains uneven.
Finally, programme evaluation should look beyond participation counts. Uptake shows that students joined; it does not show whether mentoring strengthened confidence, capability, networks, or belonging. Qualitative follow-up is essential for understanding how change happened and where the model still falls short. The benefit is evidence that can improve the programme, not just justify its existence.
FAQ
Q: How can a UK university apply these findings when developing a mentoring programme?
A: Start with a defined student group and a clear purpose, then co-design the offer with prospective participants. Recruit and train mentors who understand the relevant barriers, give students meaningful choice in matching, and connect mentoring to research development, careers, funding, and wellbeing services. Use open-text check-ins during the programme, not only at the end, so teams can correct poor matches or unclear expectations while support can still make a difference.
Q: What methodological limits should institutions keep in mind?
A: The study is qualitative and focuses on participants in one targeted programme, so it explains how students experienced culturally responsive mentoring rather than proving a causal effect or estimating how common each outcome is across UK higher education. The available abstract does not report the participant count, which also limits assessment of the breadth of the evidence. Universities should use the findings as a strong guide for local design, then test outcomes with participant accounts, progression data, and comparison over time.
Q: What does this paper change about student voice and equity work?
A: It shows why universities need to listen for the mechanisms behind unequal progression. A general satisfaction score may not reveal whether students lack trusted relationships, insider knowledge, research confidence, or access to networks. Open comments can surface those differences, but institutions must avoid treating Black students as a single, uniform group. Student voice is most useful here when it supports targeted action while preserving the complexity of individual experience.
References
[Paper Source]: Ifedapo Francis Awolowo, Oluwatoyin Dosumu, Femi Olawoyin, Adenike Abidoye and Oluwaseun Ajao "The impact of personalised mentorship on the academic, personal, and professional development of black students in UK higher education" DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2025.2591802
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