Critical Relational Mentoring in Doctoral Education: A Multimodal Artistic Illustration

Context: Mentoring plays a central role in doctoral education, shaping students’ scholarly development, professional identity, and well-being. Although the traditional mentoring approach provides structure and accountability, its hierarchical nature can reproduce power imbalances and limit inclusivity, which may erode belonging, stifle creativity, and ultimately undermine the vitality of academic communities. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of critical relational mentorship as an alternative approach and to illustrate its enactment in doctoral education by demonstrating mentoring experiences from both mentee and mentor perspectives through multimodal representations. Research Design: This multimodal artistic illustration documents the doctoral mentee’s (Lulu’s) experience and critical reflection on her mentoring relationship in doctoral education at Teachers College, supplemented by her doctoral mentor’s (Dr. Ghosh’s) perspective through the lens of critical relational mentoring. The artistic illustration comprises two components: sculpture building and visual journaling. The sculptural component features three works created by the doctoral mentee, each representing a distinct mentoring approach: traditional mentoring, relational mentoring, and critical relational mentoring. The visual journal component documents paired reflective prompts between mentor and mentee, demonstrating how critical relational mentoring manifests in doctoral relationships through three key dimensions: (1) providing effective instrumental support, (2) fostering meaningful relationship building, and (3) engaging in critical discourse about identity, power dynamics, and the academic status quo. Drawing from our lived experiences as immigrant Asian women scholars navigating academia, we then use dialogical meaning-making to examine how our developmental relationship serves as a vehicle for collective empowerment and transformative change. Conclusions: Critical relational mentoring offers an alternative to traditional models by creating spaces for self-inquiry and critical examination of academic assumptions. Grounded in trust and reciprocity, such relationships enable mentors and mentees to engage with academia more intentionally and authentically. Our use of multimodal illustration shows how creative representation can deepen reflective practice and make mentoring dynamics more visible. This approach points toward reimagining power relations in doctoral education and advancing more sustainable, equitable forms of mentoring.