They become badasses: Qualitative inquiry into academic identity and face negotiation in mentoring relationships

In higher education, an essential part of the training of graduate students happens in the one-on-one relationship between a mentor (faculty member) and the protégé (graduate student). As mentors work with graduate students, mentors often engage in face threatening speech acts (Brown & Levinson, 1987) as they work with their protégés. Face-threatening acts (FTAs) “run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or of the speaker” (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 301). It is not always possible to communicate in ways that do not infringe on the face wants of the other party. While we know much about the ways in which face threatening acts can happen, this dissertation offers to contextualize them within the unique power-laden relationship of academic mentors and protégés (Blumer et al. 2010; Gammel & Rustein-Riley, 2016; Kram, 1985). Moreover, as I look into the experience of both mentors’ and protégés’ experiences of giving and receiving face threatening acts, this research will also explore ways in which both parties communicate, enact, and perform an academic professional identity. Three major themes emerged from this phenomenological study. First, setting boundaries was an important form of negotiating face threatening conversations for both mentors and protégés. Typically, the boundaries were set by the mentors through both implicit and explicit communication. Second, mentors and protégés enacted academic identity as mentoring relationships involved the place in which intellectual process coaching occurred as well as professional socialization into academia. Finally, mentoring was a form of praxis for faculty mentors as they enacted their epistemological commitments through whole person, hands-on, and hands-off mentoring. Implications for theory and practical applications are discussed.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Kingsford, Abigail N.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Gist-Mackey, Angela N.

• Communication
• Organizational behavior
• Academic Identity
• Mentoring
• Politeness Theory
• Relational Power Dynamics

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:18466

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/35664