Part of the discomfort, according to Jody, was that board meetings "had been going along really nicely, and no one had raised probing questions." The brief served to shatter this tranquillity, disturbing the status quo.

Moving from Silence into Speech

The literature on participatory practices, which uses the framework of advocacy to stress the students' "right to speak" and represent themselves both inside and outside of their literacy program(s), presumes singular, essential, authentic and stable notions of identity among the students rather than multiple identities and positions which, in turn, inform who speaks and who listens. In other words, problematics such as social positions and power relations which underscore the "right to speak" have not been touched upon within the framework of advocacy.

Shelley, an Action Read staff member told me how she had "hoped [the students] would be stronger voiced." Shelley's frustration about the students' reluctance to speak their mind in the student group is woven throughout the following narrative:

The students won't come out and say, well, 'I don't feel comfortable in this', or they'll agree and come along with an idea up until they have to participate and then they'll leave you high and dry. But, all along they may not have been really committed or interested... I don't want this to sound really negative, but either they lack the social skills, they lack the confidence, they lack the articulation to say that they don't really think that this is a good idea or they don't want to do it, but you kind of get this passive-aggressive cooperation up until the event, when you really need them, and then they're not there because they haven't believed in it all along. And that's very, I find that really hard to deal with because I'm more used to talking with people and either you agree and you do something or you don't and then you do something else.

Shelley is frustrated by the students' reluctance to speak their minds and state their opinions; she attributes their reluctance to speak to a lack of confidence and ability to articulate, lack of interest, lack of commitment and lack of social skills. The meanings which Shelley ascribed to the behavior, actions, and words of students appear to be colored by her social identity as a white, middle-class, educated woman; her subjectivity affected her interpretation of the world. Shelley perceived that the students' behavior was in sharp contrast to the behavior of people (friends, family, colleagues) that she usually associated with in her daily interactions, yet she did not question why the students' behavior was different. Consequently, Shelley was locked into a deficit perspective of the students which painted them as lacking confidence, social skills, commitment, interest, and ability to articulate, rather than looking at how the intersection of class, race and gender played a significant role in their participation and willingness to speak their mind.