| This study explores tutors' experiences in staff education at one writing center where directors aimed to disrupt monolingual ideology and support tutors' development of culturally and linguistically inclusive and productive tutoring practices. As diversity-affirming, transformative perspectives (Blazer, 2015) counter dominant ideology about language and literacies in the U.S., tutor educators interested in addressing counter-hegemonic ideas in staff education benefit from gaining insights into how this work practically unfolds in other centers.;Little scholarship addresses the practical manifestations of transformative work in writing centers. In this dissertation, I used case study methodology to investigate how tutors experience a semester-long staff education curriculum designed by their two writing center directors. Through early-, mid-, and late-curriculum interviews, I prompted participants to discuss their experiences over a 15-week period. Tutors' reflective writing provided valuable insights into their learning experiences. Observations of staff meetings provided opportunities to document participants' interactions as they were engaged in this staple of writing center staff education. Data was analyzed for evidence of tutors' evolving knowledge, attitudes, and perceived practices, specifically with regard to concepts central to a transformative ethos for writing centers: one, the myth of linguistic homogeneity (Matsuda, 2006); two, standard English ideology (Lippi-Green, 2012); and three, linguistic diversity-as-resource praxis (Canagarajah, 2002, 2006, 2011; Horner, Lu, Royster, & Trimbur, 2011).;Results suggest that writing center staff education work toward counter-hegemonic and diversity-affirming tutoring praxis should account for several challenges related to knowledge and pedagogy. One, tutors are diverse in their cultural and linguistic knowledge, as well as in their experiences and professional goals; thus, opportunities to gain exposure to threshold concepts in transformative writing center work---through professional scholarship, for example---should be compatible with this diversity and constructed with sensitivity to limits of time. Two, given the ideologically charged nature of transformative writing center work, tutors should have opportunities to acknowledge and reflect on their own language and literacy experiences and perspectives to develop critical consciousness. Three, tutors should have opportunities to reflect deeply and regularly on their evolving perspectives and practices, and to share and respond to each other's evolving perspectives and practices. |
