Transferring Personal and Social Responsibility of Underserved Youth to the Classroom

This report is an evaluation of an in-school mentoring program for 16 underserved elementary youngsters. The goals of the program are related to a Personal and Social Responsibility Model (Hellison, 1995), which focuses on the following: (1) self-control and respect for the rights of others; (2) effort and participation; (3) self-direction; and (4) helping others. Teacher and mentor journals, and student exit interviews, constituted the data sources. Data sources were reviewed and a program-goal matrix was developed to determine the level of performance of each participant. Results of the study indicated that the youngsters were able to apply the goal of effort to learning tasks in the classroom. The club members struggled, however, to transfer some of the other values to the classroom. One particular problematic area was the club members' inability to set personal goals in the classroom setting.