This article traces diverging trajectories in a situated, participatory research project in 2 public schools in Ontario. While the project operated within a consistent set of objectives to promote educational equity for immigrant, linguistically diverse students and their families, it generated 2 substantially different models of educational provision at each of the 2 schools: one corresponding to the enrichment approach the project envisioned and the second to a remediation strategy grounded in an institutional discourse of deficit. The problematic we elucidate here is how such diverging outcomes could have been engendered. We begin by describing the conceptual bases for the activist research agenda; we then outline the interventionist, literacy enrichment framework of the project; next, we describe how the project took shape at the 2 research sites; and, finally, our reflective turn at the conclusion of this article represents our best effort to make sense of these contradictory experienced realities. (Contains 2 notes.)