TITLE: What does the research say about the characteristics of effective community-based mentoring programs that prevent drop out of "at-risk" African American high school students?

ABSTRACT:

This research explores the topics of effective mentoring programs that help students who are at-risk of failing or dropping out of school. Mentoring has been established as a useful tool and encouraged a lot of beneficial outcomes for youth who are at-risk, but most research has examined school-based mentoring. There may be a need for stronger understanding of how mentoring programs work best in community settings of historically underserved learners and their neighborhoods.This review examines the effective characteristics of community based mentoring programs for at-risk African American high school youth. Research reviewed in this thesis includes statistics of high school dropouts, understanding how to keep more youth on the right path, and the difference between SBM (school based mentoring) and CBM (community based mentoring). 

THESIS DEFENDED AND APPROVED: Fall 2018