Some Personal Reflections on the “Mentorship Paradox”

Mike Savage

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20369

Authors

Mike Savage Department of Sociology, London School of Economics https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4563-9564

Mike Savage is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics (United Kingdom) and a Professorial Research Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute, of which he was founding co-Director in 2015. He is an expert in the study of stratification and inequality, with his recent books including the co-authored Social Class in the 21^st Century (Penguin, 2015) and The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past (Harvard University Press, 2021).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20369

Keywords:

Mentorship, universities, elitism

Abstract

I draw on my experiences of mentorship to reflect on a paradox that whilst bureaucratic organizations (such as universities) need effective mentorship to nurture new generations of scholars, the most valued kinds of mentorship necessarily run orthogonal to formalized management structures. I reflect on how mentorship is necessarily an affective and caring relationship which thereby poses risks and challenges, but also offers the possibility of enhancing academic professional standards in general.

References

Friedman, S., & Laurison, D. (2019). The Class Ceiling: Why It Pays to Be Privileged. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Jack, A.A. (2019). The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.

Kanter, R.M. (1993). Men and Women of the Corporation: New Edition. New York, NY: Basic Books. (Original work published 1977)

Rivera, L.A. (2015). Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Some Personal Reflections on the “Mentorship Paradox”

Authors

DOI:

Keywords:

Abstract

References

Downloads

Published

How to Cite

Issue

Section

License

Information

Make a Submission

Keywords

Current Issue