Refugee Mentoring: Sharing the Journey

This paper reports on a study that explored the factors in conversations between people in mainstream society and people of refugee backgrounds that lead to transformational change. The context was an adult refugee mentoring program run by a nongovernment organization in Melbourne, Australia. A theoretical framework, constructed around understandings of dialogue and transformational learning, informed both the method of data collection and the analysis of data. Findings based primarily on 1-to-1 interviews revealed that those conversations that were transformative in nature were not easy. Rather, they involved challenge and consequent change in which the need for mentees to understand the meanings of mainstream culture were balanced by the desire of mentors to make a positive social difference. This resulted in shared journeys which, while expanding people's ideas about themselves and others was also culturally delimited.