Peer Tutoring in Social Work Education: A Study of Changes in the Authority of Knowledge and Relationships between Students and Teachers in Norway

Abstract

This article draws on findings from a 10-year research project focused on the consequences of a peer tutoring program introduced in 2002 in order to teach counseling skills to first-year students enrolled in the bachelor degree program of a Norwegian child welfare faculty. Using a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods involving more than 400 tutors, tutees and teachers acting as co-investigators of the program, it was found that peer tutoring resulted in a number of significant changes. Central among these were increased learning potentials among tutors, greater activity and feelings of freedom for exploring knowledge among tutees, together with an enhanced sense of belonging to a developing community of professional practitioners. Following a brief outline of the methods and findings of the study, this article examines how the traditional authority of the teacher's knowledge in the classroom was destabilized and then transformed by the peer tutoring program. In concluding, the article briefly describes the transitional learning community which evolved among students and teachers in the program.