Mentoring with an equity, diversity and inclusion lens

NATASHA RAHEEM, ASSISTANT VICE PRINCIPAL, DIXONS CENTRE FOR GROWTH, DIXONS ACADEMIES TRUST, UK Before sharing evidence-based recommendations that can help mentors to support mentees from underrepresented backgrounds, I’ll begin by referring to the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) Racial Equality in the Teacher Workforce research report. The report shows that there is an overrepresentation of people from Asian, Black and other ethnic backgrounds among applicants to postgraduate ITT (initial teacher training) but underrepresentation of these groups entering the teaching profession (Worth et al., 2022). Moreover, ‘teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds are also less likely to stay in the profession or progress to leadership than their white counterparts’ (Worth et al., 2022). Existing research provides some possible reasons for these differences, with key barriers arising from: racism/race discrimination (Hargreaves, 2011; Haque and Eliott, 2016; Lander a