From fragmentation to resilience
A Jesuit-informed case study of mentoring expressive autoethnography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v10i1.6930Keywords:
students as partners, mentoring, expressive autoethnography, Jesuit pedagogy, cura personalisAbstract
This case study examines a mentored autoethnography co-developed by a neuroscience and physiology major and a counselor-educator at a Jesuit university in the United States. Integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and creative reflection, the student produced fourteen paired artworks and journals during weekly mentoring sessions guided by the Ignatian pedagogical paradigm and its emphasis on cura personalis, or holistic care. Check-ins, collaborative analysis, and shared authorship supported a learning environment that balanced intellectual challenge with emotional safety. The findings illustrate the student’s movement from fragmentation toward resilience and agency. The case contributes to students-as-partners (SaP) literature by demonstrating how arts-based inquiry can function as a participatory and relational mode of co-inquiry. Through shared meaning-making and co-analysis, the partners enacted core SaP principles, including reciprocity, reflexivity, and shared authority. The mentoring framework expands current SaP models by integrating expressive arts as a medium for partnership-based knowledge building and supporting authentic relational engagement.
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