NEW DIRECTIONS FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT, NO. 126, SUMMER 2010 © WILEY PERIODICALS, INC. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) • DOI: 10.1002/yd.348 33 A conceptual framework is used to represent men- toring as a hybrid of familiar relationship types and to synthesize findings from qualitative studies of mentoring relationships. 2 Mutual but unequal: Mentoring as a hybrid of familiar relationship roles Thomas E. Keller, Julia M. Pryce youth mentoring is an individualized, relationship-based inter- vention intended to promote positive development. Each mentor and mentee has a distinctive experience because each mentoring relationship, like any other interpersonal relationship, is complex, dynamic, multifaceted, and idiosyncratic. 1 Despite the inherent complexity and variability that mentoring relationships demonstrate across time and settings, we propose that a simple, two-dimensional framework provides valuable insights into the structure of mentoring relationships. This con- ceptual framework, based on the relationship constructs of power and permanence, distinguishes the special hybrid nature of the mentoring relationship relative to prototypical vertical and hori- zontal relationships common in the lives of mentor and mentee. 2 We apply this conceptual framework to reveal the consistency of findings across several qualitative studies reporting systematic observation, identification, and description of patterns in youth mentoring relationships.