Students' non-participation in tutorials seems to be more widespread in certain cultural environments than others. This paper investigates the usefulness and effectiveness of tutorials as pedagogical tools and cultural links. It is postulated that the conflict results from face-considerations and the students' definition of tutorials within an inadequate cultural framework that makes no distinction between the constructions of face in the wide and narrow contexts of town and gown, respectively. Face is defined as the base-level dignity and respectability that individuals and groups seek to defend instinctively as operators within a social framework. This pedagogical framework also recognizes an "Expert-Novice" relationship within which information flows uni-directionally from the first participant to the second, in consonance with the power-structure of the larger speech community of which universities form a component. However, an unacknowledged subculture also exists, the Equal Opportunity Zone (EOZ). In the EOZ, information should move bi-directionally; town and gown diverge in their power structure patterns in that some power and control devolve on the students. Resolution of this culture-pedagogy conflict may be found by characterizing the sociolinguistic domain of education in such a way that the tutorial classroom is seen as a sub-cultural context with its own appropriateness rules. (Contains 10 references.) (Author/NAV)