Writing Centers' Praxis Is Not Neutral but Raced: Collaborative Ethnography

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Author(s): Daniel Chang (Simon Fraser University, Canada), Qinghua Chen (The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)and Angel Mei Yi Lin (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Copyright: 2024
Pages: 23
Source title: Interrogating Race and Racism in Postsecondary Language Classrooms
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Xiangying Huo (University of Toronto, Canada)and Clayton Smith (University of Windsor, Canada)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-9029-7.ch010

Keywords: Educational Administration and Leadership / Information Science Reference / Literacy and Language Studies / Media & Communications

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Abstract

This chapter begins by questioning the existing practices of writing centre tutoring. Based on the first author's writing centre tutoring experience and some artifacts, such as consultation notes, consultation forms, and feedback on student essays, the authors question whether the writing centre is truly a safe and neutral space for post-secondary writers and whether writing tutoring feedback contains some Eurocentric racial discourses that are complicit and coded in a way that sounds so called objective. Drawing on Lemke's principle of intertextuality, the authors highlight how standardized academic writing expectations have been unconsciously normalized and naturalized in writing centre tutoring discussions, thereby reinforcing the tutor's authority. In the end, we are in the position to look for an alternative, transformative change in the writing centre tutoring practice and a structural shift that can go beyond “remedial writing service provider.”

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Writing Centers' Praxis Is Not Neutral but Raced: Collaborative Ethnography

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