RAPPORT
Issue 5 (August 2020)
power imbalance (Mann, 2001) is a
feature of the tutor student
relationship that needs to be
acknowledged and managed.
(Portfolio 11, CS1).
Salter-Dvorak (2017) describes a tutorial
as a social learning space where power
relations and identities may be
‘asymmetrical, contested, and fluid’, the
interaction being ‘embedded in wider
social contexts and structures’. Similarly,
a common tutorial activity of giving
feedback is described as ‘enacting power
relations wherein Teacher and Student
perform asymmetrical roles, primarily due
to unequal access to knowledge and
institutional rights to knowledge’ (Drew &
Heritage 1992: 20). Other writers have
identified the fundamentally unequal
nature of interaction between
undergraduate students and staff ‘due to
the gatekeeping function of assessment
which positions learners as permanent
novices’ (Lea, 2005:193).
Simply being aware of this power
imbalance here, the nuance of interaction
between language used and personal
agency seem to make the tutor much
more conscious of who has the 'right to
speak' in this space (Bourdieu 1991), and
they are consequently more deliberate in
their turn-taking. This reflects a socially
situated complexity that goes beyond the
institutional commitment to 'working as
partners' and has implications for the role
of the tutor and how students are inducted
into disciplinary and professional
communities. Gourlay (2009) critiques the
widespread application of Lave and
Wenger's Communities of Practice (1998)
models to academia, suggesting it is a
poor fit with an academic context.
Looking specifically at managing tutorial
interaction, recognition of structural
inequalities requires tutors to devote
considerable energy and attention to the
moment by moment meaning-making of
real dialogue between student and tutor.
Overall, there seems to be a mismatch
between the oversimplified theoretical
frames which inadequately describe the
richness of these accounts.
Failure and identity threat as impetus
for tutorials
Of the case studies focusing on providing
academic support, ten out of twelve
address student failure. Some students
have failed modules while others are
repeating the year, others still are
unconcerned about underperformance
and risk failing:
I taught him for one module …. and
he failed this module alongside
others. He is resitting Level 4 and I
am now the module tutor for 2 of the
modules that he is resitting. (Portfolio
20, CS 3)
I met with a student to discuss her
return to Year 1 of the course. She
has had to retake 2 x 20 credit
modules to complete her Year 1 and
has just commenced these in
semester 2. (Portfolio 11, CS 1)
He seemed content with the idea that
his current standard would achieve a
2.2. (Portfolio 9, CS 3)
Portfolio 5, CS 1 examines a writing
support session with two first year
undergraduate students who have been
referred following poor performance on
first assignment. Academic writing has
been identified as something to improve.
All these tutorials begin from a position of
failure, either actual (where they have
failed) or anticipated (where the students
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