Relational mentoring in postgraduate research: Black scholars’ experiences of the ASPIRE programme

Black students’ under-representation in postgraduate research (PGR) pathways within the UK higher education (HE) sector reflects persistent structural inequalities rather than episodic participation gaps. While widening participation scholarship has focused largely on undergraduate access, less attention has been paid to relational and epistemic barriers shaping doctoral trajectories. Grounded in critical race theory and anti-deficit scholarship, this article examines how Black scholars participating in a culturally grounded mentoring programme interpreted their experiences within racialised PGR contexts. Drawing on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and dialogic ‘listening rooms’, analysed through reflexive thematic analysis and a multistakeholder round-table analysis, the study integrates Bell’s (2018) concept of the permanence of racism, Delgado’s (1989) counter-storytelling, and Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth framework alongside Ubuntu (Tutu, 1999) and Omoluabi (Oyeshile, 2021) philosophies. Findings indicate that participants described identity affirmation, bounded belonging and strengthened navigational agency. Rather than framing these shifts as remediation of deficit, the analysis interprets them as institutional recognition and activation of existing cultural wealth. The article conceptualises culturally grounded mentoring as relational equity infrastructure, operating within enduring institutional constraints advancing a theoretically integrated model to support Black scholars in PGR environments.