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The closing chapter offers additional reflection on two substantial threads which run throughout the volume. Firstly, quality education (SDG4). Contributors to the volume have articulated with varying degrees of explicitness what quality education means in their specific contexts. Complementary perspective is offered in the closing chapter, through the inclusion of personal interpretations from two students in their last but one year of high school in the United Kingdom. The students are reflecting back on a week of work experience in a university and looking forward to their university journey. Amrita Narang has kindly provided a response to these personal reflections, drawing on her experience of learning and working in various national higher education contexts. Aspects the two students highlight resonate with the ethos of entrepreneurial education. An example of entrepreneurial learning in a collaborative Sino-UK higher education venture is therefore included here, showcasing ways in which students can further grow their strengths, with bespoke entrepreneurial mentoring support.

The mentoring thread running throughout the volume is picked up in the final chapter with specific reference to contracting (a staple element of formal mentoring relationships, achieved in complex and subtle ways in informal ones), closure and co-learning. All chapter contributions focus on long-term, ongoing mentoring relationships, in which closure is temporary and is viewed as a stepping stone for subsequent learning opportunities. To facilitate continued learning in readers, the final section in the chapter invites them to pause and reflect, signposting three sources of insight and wisdom for sustainability-oriented lifelong learning and action.

This chapter aims to examine the ways coaching and mentoring are currently leveraged to deliver leadership development in higher education institutions. By exploring the variety of coaching and mentoring approaches and their deployment at different levels and across different institutions we are able to indicate opportunities for further enhancing leadership development in the sector through coaching and mentoring. The chapter examines peer-reviewed articles, sector reports and insights from key informants crafted into mini case studies. Mentoring emerges as a default approach to leadership development, in particular at early career stages and where inclusivity and diversity feature as part of leadership development programmes. Coaching is evident at the senior levels and offers a wider range of individual leader, senior team and organisational leadership development opportunities. Our cases highlight the range of responses and sophistication of coaching approaches and practices, from the highly embedded to other more piecemeal examples. The findings emphasise the importance of empirical research in this area to better understand and inform the sector of the wider benefits and opportunities of coaching and mentoring in supporting leadership development. Opportunities to support greater inclusivity and diversity in leadership should consider coaching approaches and practices too. This exploration of coaching and mentoring identifies why shifts towards coaching may be evident. It challenges those in the sector – researchers, people management and organisational developers, as well as senior leaders – to adopt more integrated and embedded coaching and mentoring initiatives to support the sector in addressing its current challenges.

Mentoring programmes for students have been made ‘popular’ with the increase in New Zealand universities over the past 10 years. These programmes have targeted the groups of ‘low achieving’ students, especially those of Pacific ethnicity, who have been identified as students who need academic support. For the universities, the main priority has been to increase the academic achievement levels of the students. Mentoring has value and it is beneficial for all of those involved. However, there needs to be examination and analysis of mentoring programmes, especially with regard to the impacts. As a practitioner and theorist of mentoring, I present a personal exploration of the interpersonal relationships formed in mentoring between myself and my students so that a clearer depiction of mentoring relationships may occur for those have a keen interest with Pacific students. The nature of mentoring in a university context is challenging but with the philosophical approach of appreciative mentorship, the challenges quickly fade into the background. Mentoring as a process of relationship development is critical for the successful academic futures of Pacific students in tertiary education.

Co-authored by three South African academics working in higher education development, this chapter uses the transition from professional practice to academic contexts as an entry point into a discussion of transitions broadly. We reflect on the role of mentoring in supporting the multiple transitions which dual professionals navigate and what this means for the provision of inclusive, quality education (SDG 4) with a focus on higher education. In reflecting on this Sustainable Development Goal, we approach the topic of mentoring from a critical perspective which allows us to attend to the themes of power, access and equity that it invokes. The body of scholarship on the transition experiences of practitioners into academia has challenged the assumption that professional expertise translates into teaching expertise in the classroom. The opening vignette contextualizes this challenge. The vignette protagonist offers to support an academic colleague and approaches a mentoring expert to explore her guiding principles for mentoring within and beyond the classroom. The dialogue surfaces the need for mentoring that considers the various transitions that dual professionals navigate. We engage critically with international literature on the role and positionality of dual professionals in academia and reflect on selected concepts from this literature to highlight the importance of an adaptive mentoring approach for meeting academics in transition at their point of need. We offer a synthesis of literature on holistic approaches to mentoring, critically reflecting on how they enable inclusive quality education for the benefit of society.

Generally, theory and research investigating the effectiveness of mentoring has offered little resounding evidence to attest to mentoring programmes being a strategic initiative that make a real difference in reducing the educational inequities many minority students endure. In contrast to this existing research base, the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) has often been cited as one of the most successful mentoring initiatives within Australia. It is the purpose of this chapter to examine how AIME may impact on the educational aspirations and school self-concept of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

A series of multi-group analyses were centred around Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling techniques that sought not only to explore the psychometric validity of the measures utilized within this study, but also to identify how the measures may be related after accounting for background variables (e.g. gender, parental education).

The results found that the measures utilized held strong psychometric properties allowing an increased level of confidence in the measures used and the conclusion that may be drawn from their use in analyses. Overall, the results suggested that AIME is an effective tool for increasing not only the educational aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students but also their levels (and utility) of School Self-concept and School Enjoyment.

The implications suggest that not only is AIME an essential tool for closing the educational gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal students, but also our understanding of mentoring must be extended well beyond simplistic notions of role-modelling.

This chapter offers an original conceptualization of co-mentoring – situated in the wider literature – together with evidence of its impact and factors facilitating impact across applications of co-mentoring in transnational schooling contexts. Co-mentoring is an alternative to more traditional, hierarchical, and unidirectional approaches to mentoring in education. Extending the extant literature on collaborative mentoring (or “comentoring”), co-mentoring is a collaborative, compassionate, and developmental relationship – informed by specific approaches to mentoring and coaching – that is intended to support participants' professional learning, development, effectiveness, and well-being, and potentially improve their workplace cultures. Detailing three different applications of co-mentoring across the United Kingdom and United States, the chapter evidences the realization of these intended outcomes (professional learning, etc.), and highlights factors found to be instrumental in facilitating the positive impacts of co-mentoring. We end with recommendations for undertaking research and practice that build human and organizational capacity through co-mentoring. A takeaway is that intentional approaches to co-mentoring can have value for participating parties and broader impact, as well as wide applicability.

This chapter describes an undergraduate peer-to-peer mentoring program, UniMentor, at a regional Australian university, which aims to support students in equity groups. Key benefits identified are: enhanced retention rates; improved academic performance; and strengthened social networks. While the focus is on commencing students (mentees), significant positive outcomes for third-year mentors are also apparent. Internal and external challenges that may influence access to mentoring among students include shifting institutional support and roles and curriculum change. Enablers include training, clarity of purpose, strong support networks, and fostering student sense of ownership. The effect of disciplinary culture on uptake and effectiveness of mentoring is also important. Overall, the program compares well against published frameworks of successful student mentoring. Nevertheless, critical questions remain regarding the effectiveness of general versus targeted mentoring programs for students in equity groups.

We examine the question of whether peer-mentoring programs in higher education develop leadership skills in student mentors.

The various forms of peer mentoring are discussed, as well as the benefits that these programs can bestow on mentors. We then turn to a discussion of the relationship between peer mentoring and leadership, and place particular emphasis on implicit leadership theories and the research in this area. A case study of a large peer-mentoring program at an Australian university is undertaken and the various aspects of implicit leadership theory are examined in the light of comments collected from both mentees and mentors.

Evidence of implicit leadership skills of mentors was seen in the responses of mentees. However, the explicit treatment of leadership skills in the peer-mentoring program needs to be approached in a more deliberate manner if students are to benefit fully from the experience of mentoring.

While the results of this study were inconclusive, it does provide a basis for further inspection of leadership development within peer-mentoring communities.

The aim of our research is to examine network of support persons of the students from marginalized Roma communities in Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovak Republic. By conducting a qualitative analysis of the examples of good practice, that is, students who have managed to successfully study at a university despite their difficult family backgrounds, we have surveyed the type of support the students received during their studies and the persons who supported them at individual education levels. In the research part, we also analyze the factors which had an impact on the development of their resilient personality and the sources of support which helped them overcome barriers during their studies. The primary support persons were the members of their nuclear families whose emotional, informational, instrumental, and appraisal support was particularly crucial at the primary school. At the next education levels, especially important for respondents was the emotional support they received in the form of encouragement and improvement of respondents’ self-confidence. Teachers are mentioned in the narratives of our respondents as persons engaging in their support and education at the primary and the secondary school. Their supportive influence fades away at the university, which is a pity for our group of students because it is the university environment which is completely unknown to them and so they must rely on the help of peers. A good strategy applied particularly in Hungary is the creation of support groups led by a lecturer-mentor for students coming from marginalized Roma communities which help them during the first days at university. School achievements of respondents were also influenced by other persons who helped them at all levels based on personal sympathies and the established relationships. At the beginning, such persons occur in their life narratives incidentally, but later respondents learned to actively build networks of support relationships as part of their resilient behavior.

Community college African American male student enrollment and academic success is diminishing. The authors explore the importance and wisdom of mentoring programs for African American males attending community colleges. The chapter considers issues of student persistence and retention and how they relate to effective community college mentoring programs. Specifically, the authors discuss how community college mentoring programs can counteract inherent obstacles for African American students attending commuter style campuses. A description of how some community colleges successfully engage African American male students in order to achieve Kuh's four attributes of a supportive college environment and to overcome the issues of college departure -- being first-generation college students, lacking academic self-concept, no or minimal institutional engagement with students, and no or minimal student involvement student involvement on campus – is provided. The authors highlight successful community college programs which include the national “Students African American Brotherhood” program, Santa Fe College's “My Brother's Keeper,” the North Carolina Community College System, and Hillsborough Community College's Collegiate 100.