What do students learn in mentoring?

This is a new article from 2024 by: Glømmen Anne Margrethe, Brevik Saethern Beate & Eriksson Rikard (2024) Students´learning outcomes from being a mentor in the Nightingale Mentoring Programme for Adult Refugees in Norway. Emerald Insight.

Most studies on mentoring refer to the benefits of having a mentor, whereas the benefits of being a mentor have been ignored a lot. But this article however shows some of the benefit and learning mentor get.
The results showed that mentoring changed the mentors’ perspectives towards improved understanding, more flexibility and approval of other cultures. It seems that mentoring expanded the mentors’ search for values, wishes and resources, including an awareness that our values, wishes and needs are more similar than different. Mentoring also seems to have improved the ability to reformulate, be flexible, strive to optimise user engagement and engage with people as they are, based on their own prerequisites

As one mentor describes it: ”It’s amazing to realize how limited my insight into other cultures actually is, even though I used to believe otherwise”

Click here to download it.



“Processes of Bildung in pedagogical contact zones. Crises as potential for Bildung within the framework of the organisation of intercultural tandems.”

By Peter Stammerjohann, Freie University, Berlin

Why should we want to know a stranger
when it is easier to estrange another?
Why should we want to close the distance
when we can close the gate?
Morrison, Toni (2017): The Origin of Others. Harvard: Harvard University Press. 8th edition.

To find new path and a new answer.
To rethink and hold potential,
to change the image of the world and oneself.
This is one conclusion of the research – and crises gain importance.

Please click here to read more (translation of the preface and introduction of the book publication)

Results of Mentoring in the Psychosocial Well-Being of Young Immigrants and Refugees in Spain

By:Anna Sánchez-Aragón,Angel Belzunegui-Eraso & Òscar Prieto-Flores

Evidence has shown that non-parental figures play an important role in the social inclusion of vulnerable communities and that mentoring can help promote positive intercultural relationships. 
This study examines how effective the Nightingale program in Spain is at promoting social, cultural, and linguistic inclusion for young immigrants and refugees.
The result shows overall it had a positive impact on the emotional well-being of the participants. Participation in the Nightingale project improved the minors’ relationships with their classmates. It also strengthened their feeling of personal worth.

Click here to read the article

New book: Values in Child Welfare Service (only in Norwegian)

Chapter 10:
Verdimøter som organisert læringsprosjekt 
Liv Randi Roland , The Nightingale Norway
Høgskolelektor, Høgskolen i Innlandet 

Click here to down load the book
Abstract in English

Values in Child Welfare Service discusses how child welfare services are influenced by social, cultural and personal values. The primary objective of this anthology is to contribute to debate on how frameworks, ideologies and moral understandings can and should have an impact on child welfare services’ work on behalf of vulnerable children and youths. 

From the abstract chapter 10.
This chapter is based on the experiences from a mentoring program called Nattergalen (the Nightingale), in which social work, child care and community edu- cation students meet children with immigrant backgrounds. The students and chil- dren meet weekly to participate in activities for the mutual pleasure and learning of both parties. The activities are agreed upon in consultation with the children’s parents. This chapter aims to provide a picture of the students’ experiences with the children’s home base. Through the many meetings with the children and their par- ents, together with the systematic reflection about these experiences, the students obtained a nuanced and varied understanding of the different value orientations in modern family life. The primary aim of Nattergalen is to add to and strengthen the students’ multicultural skills and to motivate the children to attend school and to choose education. The chapter elucidates how the students who are participating in Nattergalen are being encouraged or coached to reflect on the varying value orien- tations in their meetings with children and their families. 

Keywords: professional values, systematic reflection, multicultural skills, children and families with immigrant backgrounds 

New research and evaluation from Malmö University, by Lars Lagergren.

Eldar och Soha, two former mentees and mentors

Näktergalen mentorsverksamhet – Möten för växande ( In Swedish)
This report consist of interviews with former mentees and mentors. But it is also an analysis of the program by looking at its aims and vision and a review of the Nightingale cycle over the year.
Please down load the Report here.

Interesting of Knowing more, want to give feed-back or have any questions? Please contact Lars.lagergren@mau.se

Master´s thesis about Nightingale

The use of mentoring as an integration tool – a case study of the Nightingale mentoring program in Trondheim, Norway.
This thesis focus on how coordinators and teachers in the Nightingale mentoring program work to implement The Nightingale in their own organization. NTNU ( Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
By Helena Marten.
Click here to download it.