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Tammy Allen and Lillian Eby (Editors). The Blackwell Handbook of Mentoring: A Multiple Perspectives Approach. Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007, 520 pages, $146.95 hardcover.
Edited by Allen and Eby, two of the leading experts in the field of mentoring from the discipline of industrial-organizational psychology, The Blackwell Handbook of Mentoring: A Multiple Perspectives Approach is appropriately titled. At the mention of the word mentoring, some may only think of formal mentoring programs in organizations. But there is more to mentoring than just the relationship between a high-potential employee/protégé and an older, more experienced mentor. The field of mentoring covers broad areas or domains, and the book specifically brings together the domains of youth mentoring (think Big Brother/Big Sister programs), student-faculty mentoring (like that found in any college or university undergraduate or graduate program), and workplace mentoring. The book has seven parts: introduction, theoretical approaches and methodological issues, naturally occurring mentoring relationships, benefits of mentoring, diversity and mentoring, best practices for formal mentoring programs, and integrating multiple mentoring perspectives. Each broad mentoring domain that the book addresses (youth mentoring, student-faculty mentoring, and workplace mentoring) has its own proper spotlight in Parts II through VI of the book. The final chapters of Parts ? through VI also has a "reflection" piece that integrates the similarities and differences brought by each domain of mentoring discussed and attempts to bridge the broad domains together. Part VII has two final chapters that address the future and new directions for mentoring research and how the three different domains of mentoring the book addresses can be integrated. Overall, the book is well organized and is a must for researchers who want to have a broad grasp of mentoring, particularly those who are starting out, trying to begin to generally understand and study the vast field of mentoring.
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