TITLE:  The Effects of School-Based Mentoring on Classroom Engagement of Middle School Students of Color in a Mostly White Urban School

ABSTRACT:  How can school-based mentoring increase middle school students’ of color classroom engagement in a predominantly White urban school?  This study focuses on the effects of mentor strategies to better engage, academically and emotionally, students of color in a largely White urban middle school in Minnesota. In this study, students of color were identified as African-American and Asian-American students. Engagement is here defined as increased student emotional comfort level, “connectedness,” and increased student desire to follow basic classroom expectations of appropriate attendance and completed class assignments.

THESIS DEFENDED and APPROVED:  Spring 2016