The intersection between academic literacies and student identities
Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: Difficulties students experience in attaining the required discipline-specific academic literacy practices were frequently described by the lecturers interviewed
in this study as arising from low levels of student motivation. Motivation was vested
in the student as an individual attribute, rather than as a factor of the broader
context. The student discourses analysed in this study, however, indicated that
identity formation played an important role in the extent to which students adopted
the literacies of the academy. Students were clearly invested in adopting the
practices necessary for membership in new social groups in the higher education
environment, but they did not, in general, identify with the academic literacy
practices that perform a gate keeping function for success in higher education.
These literacy practices were perceived by the students as being confusing, difficult
to access and, at times, as alienating from the African identities they valued.
Author: S McKenna
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $20
OpenAlex ID: W2041661499