The term resistance has been an evolving concept in literacy and composition studies. While much has been studied in terms of student resistance in high schools, first-year composition classrooms, and in university writing centers, little is known about how resistance occurs in afterschool tutoring programs between volunteer writing tutors and their tutees. Using an ethnographic case study approach, this paper examines how three adult volunteer writing tutors made sense of resistance in working with their adolescent tutees in an urban tutoring program. The findings showed that tutor attitudes, values, and reactions shaped their experience of resistance in a variety of ways including a) misreading tutee signals of engagement; b) masking expectations of cultural and linguistic compliance within a discourse of resistance; and c) embracing resistance as a bridge to tutor growth. The author uses these findings to inform current conceptions of student resistance and compliance and to provide implication for volunteer tutor training.
The Modern Language Centre addresses a broad spectrum of theoretical and practical issues related to second and minority language teaching and learning. Since its foundation in 1968, the quality and range of the Centre's graduate studies programs, research, and development projects and field and dissemination services have brought it both national and international recognition. Our work focuses on curriculum, instruction, and policies for education in second, foreign, and minority languages, particularly in reference to English and French in Canada but also other languages and settings – including studies of language learning, methodology and organization of classroom instruction, language education policies, student and program evaluation, teacher development, as well as issues related to bilingualism, multilingualism, cultural diversity, and literacy. In this research report, we will present research activities underway in the Centre in the areas of pedagogy, literacy development, sociocultural theory, pragmatics, and assessment.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.