Preface

The Wiley International Handbook of Mentoring: Paradigms, Practices, Programs, and Possibilities is presented as a text in which international authors offer commentaries and share interpretations on the components of mentoring in today's networked world society with varied cultural vantage points. This internationally focused Handbook serves to deepen the understanding and implementation of mentoring. Furthermore, it is our hope that the Handbook validates mentoring in any culture, (a) aids one's chances of promotion on the job or completion of a task, (b) provides socialization and assimilation into one's respective profession or new position, (c) facilitates success in maneuvering through personalities, politics, policies, and procedures, (d) gives women and/or individuals from diverse groups value-added and equitable access to resources and information, (e) improves diversity initiatives, (f) addresses skill and knowledge gaps, (g) develops leaders, (h) increases employee commitment, participation, and retention, (i) helps build one's network, and (j) offers one different views of situation or helps one see different avenues to approach challenges.

Why Is Mentoring Important?

Mentoring appears to be more important than ever before, particularly from an international perspective. We believe this is due to the interconnectedness of societies around the world via instant communications. Due to this situation, there is a need to understand other cultures better in order to impact the social good and global economic outcomes. Mentoring can aid in such understandings via the mere basis of mentoring, and that is the development of empathic relationships.

We acknowledge that mentoring is actualized in a world of uncertainty. There is uncertainty in terms of time-it seems there is less time for professional priming and succession planning; there is uncertainty in terms of resources-it seems there are shrinking budgets for professional development and advanced training; and there is uncertainty in the mental health of many youth-it seems there is a lack of sophistication or naivety in terms of building strong structures for increasing human capacity. Therefore, effective personal mentoring and mentoring programs become even more important than ever in a world of resource deprivation and uncertainty.

What the International Handbook Offers

The Handbook provides the first collection in the area of mentoring in which the authors and editors apply theory to practice and research, programs, and recommendations from an inclusive, international perspective. Such a collection should enable readers to put theory into action, while considering cultural contexts and laying a theoretical foundation for further research internationally. This Handbook includes a panorama of introspections on mentoring from international scholars and practitioners who will contribute as a global collective with perspectives from 14 countries and 6 continents (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Countries of Perspectives of Contributing Scholars

Construct and Structure

Rather than having an introduction to sections, the reader will find that each section includes a final synthesis chapter authored by the section editor(s) that captures the essence of the lessons learned within a global mentoring context, along with research avenues recommended for further exploration. As a content analysis and synthesis of the chapters within each section, it is itself a culturally attuned research endeavor. This makes the Handbook totally unique from any other, which may make it an appropriate and essential volume for a global readership and for those teaching mentoring courses, for trainers, and for researchers and practitioners in a variety of fields such as business, education, government, politics, sciences, industry, or sports. The book also differs from other volumes, because it moves from the theoretical foundations of mentoring to mentoring programs, to best practices in mentoring, and finally to the future possibilities of mentoring. There is no other handbook volume that has this type of sequencing with an international composition. The four sequences of the book are: (a) mentoring paradigms, (b) mentoring practices, (c) mentoring programs, and (d) mentoring possibilities. Each is discussed as follows.

Section I: Mentoring Paradigms

First, we briefly introduce paradigms and disciplines. Kuhn (1962) reintroduced a most influential concept, that of a paradigm, which he put forward as a set of practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time. Certainly, there are paradigms with sets of practices in the field of mentoring which come with their own vocabulary, operational definitions, purposes, strategies, outcomes, theoretical structures, programs, methods, and standards. Kuhn includes the term, "discipline," within the concept of paradigm.

Riggio (2013) indicated that there is not a clear answer as to what specifically defines an academic discipline. However, he did state that a discipline emerges with consensus. He stated "Consensus refers to shared agreement about: (1) a circumscribed knowledge base, (2) research methodology, (3) content and procedures for training, and (4) professional, scholarly journals and association(s)" (p. 10). Mentoring is poised as an emergent discipline as it (a) has a set of practices that define it, (b) has a defined knowledge based with at least 20?years of published knowledge within a journal that is focused only on the topic of mentoring and within similarly focused published books, (c) has published studies using quantitative and/or qualitative methods grounded in the social sciences, (d) has content and procedures for training, and (e) has professional, scholarly journals, and associations.

Within the past 35?years since Kram's (1985) book, Mentoring at Work: Developmental Relationships in Organizational Life, numerous paradigms of mentoring have emerged. We contend that from an epistemological, paradigmatic perspective, mentoring has materialized over time as a way of knowing-knowing the other and knowing oneself; knowing when to mentor, when to decline, and when to be mentored; knowing what to say and what to do in a mentoring dyad or group; knowing who to mentor; knowing who should be a mentor; knowing where to mentor; and knowing how to mentor and how often to mentor or be mentored. Just as Kuhn proposed that major epistemological changes, or paradigm shifts, take a social revolution, we propose that the paradigm of mentoring with the past three decades of research, practice, and work in the field has been pushed forward, not so much by a social revolution but by a professional movement and consensus. We believe that the mentoring paradigms presented within this Handbook will further the core knowledge on mentoring, pushing it further toward a discipline. Thus, it is an appropriate topic with which to begin the Handbook. This section on Mentoring Paradigms should lead readers to a basic understanding of mentoring from the vistas of the authors who hail originally from Canada, Egypt, Guatemala, South Korea, and the United States.

Section II: Mentoring Practices

Practices, or sets of practices, are components of a paradigm and of a discipline. It is therefore appropriate to provide global examples of mentoring practices that have proven to be successful and those that are promising new innovations. A search on Google related to mentoring practices or practices of mentoring yielded over 5 million hits and in a search of large databases on the topic of mentoring practices, there were 3,383 articles, 317 text sources, 268 books, 247 reviews, and 181 conference proceedings. From a global perspective, authors from Brazil, Canada, Haiti, and the United States share practices of mentoring with the following general topics: practices related to mentoring new faculty; mentoring as a community of practice; mentoring practices among women of color; practices for mentoring protégés; collaborative practices in mentoring; cross-cultural practices; online mentoring, practices in mentoring principals, and mentoring practices in higher education and community colleges.

Section III: Mentoring Programs

Section III houses information on programs of mentoring. Herein, international authors describe mentoring programs that have had a significant impact upon the field and those that have been designed to meet the unmet needs and underserved populations. This area of practice in mentoring brings up over 22 million sites on a Google search, and in a search of large databases in the Texas A&M University libraries on the topic of mentoring programs, there were 8,764 citations. The contributors for this section hail originally from Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong-China, India, Israel, and the United States, and they share a variety of successful international programs related to mentoring college students, faculty, peers, principals, high school students, and teachers.

Section IV: Mentoring Possibilities

Section IV, Possibilities, is comprised of authors who delve into the realm of the future by exploring groundbreaking approaches to mentoring, which could further the field and the concepts of mentoring programs and relationships. The international scholars from Australia, England, Ireland, Sweden, and the United States challenge the readers on topics of...