The Center for Literacy

Working Paper No. 3: Behaviour and beliefs of volunteer literacy tutors

The role of volunteers in literacy has not been subject to much systematic research. This qualitative study of volunteers' beliefs and behaviours had the full cooperation of a volunteer organization which was interested in examining itself. The author acknowledges the limitations of the work and cautions against generalizing to all volunteer organizations. However, she has raised questions worth asking in other groups. Beyond the interest of the paper itself, the research has had practical outcomes. The organization studied is using it as the starting point for some critical self-assessment that they hope will lead to improved service provision to their clients. The field can only benefit from such research-practice links. A condensed version of this paper appeared in Literacy Across the Curriculum/Media Focus, Volume 13, No. 3.