Exploring youth mentoring as a means of facilitating character growth and Positive Youth Development (PYD) in late childhood

Bútorová, Hana (2026) Exploring youth mentoring as a means of facilitating character growth and Positive Youth Development (PYD) in late childhood. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis explores character-focused youth mentoring as a means of supporting character growth and Positive Youth Development (PYD) in late childhood. It responds to gaps in the character education and youth mentoring literatures, namely that character education has often lacked developmental grounding while mentoring research has shown promise but has reported modest and uneven effects, leaving questions about how, for whom, and under what conditions mentoring supports development. The thesis argues for an expansive, non-instrumental, flourishing-oriented account of character, informed by Aristotelian character education and positive psychology, drawing on insights from social-emotional learning, and grounded in PYD and Relational Developmental Systems theory.

The research examines the WISE Mentoring programme, a school-based, character-focused mentoring programme delivered in Glasgow for children aged 9-11. The programme combines one-to-one mentoring, group activities, and a structured Wellbeing and Character curriculum focused on self-knowledge, growth mindset, goal setting, resilience, self-control, good judgement, and fairness. Conducted from a researcher-practitioner position, the thesis adopts a primarily qualitative, process-oriented design, complemented by a quantitative strand. Study 1 used an online diary method with 14 mentors to explore mentors' experiences of the programme and their perceptions of mentee development. Study 2 used focus groups with 19 children to examine children's experiences of mentoring, the curriculum, and perceived change. Study 3 used a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test control-group design with 134 children to examine whether measured outcomes changed differently for programme participants and nonparticipants.

Across the qualitative studies, character-focused mentoring was experienced as supporting growth through the interaction of close relationships, structured curriculum content, personalisation, guided autonomy, and opportunities for application beyond sessions. Mentors and children described the importance of trust, openness, attentive listening, reciprocity, and group belonging. The curriculum activities appeared to provide shared language and concrete tools for reflecting on character, emotions, goals, decisions, and everyday challenges. Reported outcomes included increased confidence, self-awareness, self-regulation, openness, perspective-taking, reflection, intentionality, and the ability to apply strategies in real-life contexts. Mentors also described their own growth in confidence, empathy, adaptability, and relational skills. The quantitative study found weak patterns in the expected direction across outcomes, but only self-esteem showed a statistically significant improvement for the programme group relative to the control group. This finding broadly aligned with the qualitative emphasis on self-esteem and sense of self, but the overall quantitative results were constrained by low power, heterogeneity, and limitations of standardised self-report measures.

The thesis contributes to theory by offering an integrated PYD model of character-focused youth mentoring, conceptualising it as a relational, structured, autonomy-supportive, and ecologically embedded developmental process. It suggests that character in mentoring may be "caught" through relational ethos and modelling, "taught" through personalised structured activities, and "sought" through interactions that increase youth autonomy and support application in everyday life, while emphasising that these pathways are interdependent. Practically, it highlights the need to balance closeness with boundaries, structure with flexibility, fidelity with personalisation, and youth agency with guided support. Methodologically, it argues that evaluations of character-focused mentoring require contextsensitive, multi-method, and developmentally appropriate approaches capable of capturing person-specific, reflective, and gradual forms of growth. Overall, the thesis puts forward an integrated, empirically grounded, PYD-informed account of how character-focused mentoring may support children's flourishing, which future research can test, refine, and extend.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: L Education > L Education (General)
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Skipper, Dr. Yvonne and Davis, Professor Robert
• Date of Award: 2026
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2026-86326
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 12 Oct 2026 13:50
• Last Modified: 12 Oct 2026 14:34
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.86326
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/86326