scholarly journals Reading to Be: The role of academic reading in emergent academic and professional student identities

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-70
Author(s):  
Moira Maguire ◽  
◽  
Ann Everitt Reynolds ◽  
Brid Delahunt ◽  
◽  
...  

Despite the widespread acknowledgement of the importance of academic reading, much research tends to focus on academic writing. The role of academic writing in the development of academic and professional identities is generally accepted. In contrast, the role of academic reading has been less visible in the literature, and when discussed, it tends to be conceptualised as a generic skill. In this paper, we explore the role of reading in emergent academic identities in undergraduates. We reflect on research with our own Nursing and Midwifery students that highlighted the role of reading in the development of ‘writing capital.’ Drawing on this and wider evidence we explore how, through academic reading, students begin to recognise, and then participate in the scholarly conversations that construct knowledge within disciplines. We argue that academic reading, like academic writing, is a complex ongoing process that involves multiple transitions, rather than a skill that can, and should, be mastered early on. We contend that educators need to consider how and where academic reading is addressed within academic programmes. Moreover, we suggest ways to make room for it within our curricula and engage students in conversations about the nature of scholarship within their disciplines.

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-35
Author(s):  
Kirsty Miller ◽  
◽  
Hannah Merdian ◽  

The role of academic writing in the development of academic literacy in university students has been considered in some depth in the literature. However, the view of lecturers as to the role and value of academic reading is notably less explored and warrants further exploration. Academic staff from a broad range of subject areas were invited to participate in a survey on the role and function of academic reading. Using an explorative approach, the study investigated academics’ views about reading behaviour with regards to the students’ academic journey, their own academic development, and its incorporation into their teaching. All comments were thematically analysed, resulting in a number of elicited themes and subthemes. The paper highlighted the key role of academics in the modelling, rewarding, and teaching of academic reading and discusses practical implications for Higher Education, particularly with regards to academic teaching and students’ skills development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-192
Author(s):  
Colleen Renihan ◽  
Julia Brook ◽  
Ben Schnitzer

To the accepted three cornerstones for innovation of undergraduate music major curricula—creativity, diversity, and integration—must be added fourth, professionalization, that is, the establishment of viable professional identities. This article focuses on a subset of Canadian music undergraduate singers, reporting on research into the structure and reality of the eight cultural domains in Canada, and investigating three important themes that emerge from statistics for the training of singers in postsecondary training: the range of work available to music graduates, the portfolio nature of working musicians’ careers, and the increasing significant role of technological fluency in musicians’ careers today.


Author(s):  
Sharon McCulloch ◽  
Tania Horak

Two main groups of staff currently provide writing support to students in British universities. These staff typically enter their roles from a range of professional backgrounds and, consequently, may hold different professional identities and understandings of what academic writing is. Although there is a body of research on teacher identity and on lecturers’ conceptualisations of writing, few studies have compared the views and identities of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers and learning developers. The current study set out to investigate whether these two groups perceive academic writing in similar or different ways, and why. We undertook a small-scale study, interviewing eight participants at two universities, half from a post-1992 institution and the others from a research-intensive, high-ranking university. While participants varied in their definitions of writing, common themes emerged, lying on a spectrum from an autonomous, text-based, to an academic literacies perspective on writing. To establish the influences on these perspectives, we investigated the participants’ sense of identity as an academic writer, how they learned writing themselves and any influences on them from theory. Neither the EAP teachers nor the learning developers identified strongly as academic writers, despite all holding postgraduate qualifications and some having published their writing. Most reported little to no training in how to write academically themselves, and few mentioned any theoretical stance in their approach to helping students. Although some clustering around particular conceptualisations of writing was observed, we did not find strong evidence that the participants belong to two different ‘tribes’.


Author(s):  
S. Taubaeva ◽  
◽  
S. Imanbaeva ◽  
Zh. Baltabaeva ◽  
◽  
...  

The academic literacy among students development problem, which includes academic reading, academic writing, and academic performance, becomes relevant in the Republic of Kazakhstan, in the system of higher and postgraduate education. PhD students in the field of pedagogy study the basic discipline "Pedagogy Philosophy and Methodology". This discipline is designed to educate them in public speaking to an audience with their search and experiment results throughout their studies. For a speech to the audience, students prepare a scientific report. Report (scientific), researcher public presentation, which is a summary of his scientific search results, design, experiment. The purpose, structure and content of the discipline allows the teacher to systematize didactic presentations in six areas and use them in lectures and seminars. Over the past ten years, these presentations have contributed to the deeper understanding and assimilation by PhD students of the pedagogy philosophical and methodological foundations, and the pedagogical research methodological tools.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Robertson

This study explores and analyses mentoring relationships between unemployed and underemployed internationally-educated teachers (IETs) from visible minority groups and Canadian-experienced educators, and their influence on the re-establishment of migrant teachers' professional identities and perceptions of inclusion in Greater Toronto Area (GTA) school communities. A detailed literature review summarizes previously identified issues in this area while, nine in-depth interviews conducted with mentees, mentors and mentoring pairs in this study identify prior and newly emergent themes. Primary themes that transpired include: the presence of varying forms of resistance from the dominant community towards IETs; the role of mentoring relationships in meeting IETs' needs; and the importance of consistency, trust and honesty in building collaborative relationships that foster IETs' successful integration into the teaching field. Recommendations include: the delivery of equity-oriented programming through educational bodies; the development of sustainable occupation-specific teacher mentoring programs; and the promotion of IETs to the greater community by educational stakeholders.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 136-162
Author(s):  
Beverly FitzPatrick ◽  
Mike Chong ◽  
James Tuff ◽  
Sana Jamil ◽  
Khalid Al Hariri ◽  
...  

PhD students are enculturated into scholarly writing through relationships with their supervisors and other faculty. As part of a doctoral writing group, we explored students’ experiences that affected their writing, both cognitively and affectively, and how these experiences made them feel about themselves as academic writers. Six first and second year doctoral students participated in formal group discussions, using Edward de Bono’s (1985/1992) Six Thinking Hats to guide the discussions. In addition, the students wrote personal narratives about their writing experiences. Data were analyzed according to the rhetorical rectangle of logos, ethos, pathos, and kairos. Analysis revealed that students were having struggles with their identities as academic writers, not feeling as confident as they had before their programs, and questioning some of the pedagogy of teaching academic writing.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Robertson

This study explores and analyses mentoring relationships between unemployed and underemployed internationally-educated teachers (IETs) from visible minority groups and Canadian-experienced educators, and their influence on the re-establishment of migrant teachers' professional identities and perceptions of inclusion in Greater Toronto Area (GTA) school communities. A detailed literature review summarizes previously identified issues in this area while, nine in-depth interviews conducted with mentees, mentors and mentoring pairs in this study identify prior and newly emergent themes. Primary themes that transpired include: the presence of varying forms of resistance from the dominant community towards IETs; the role of mentoring relationships in meeting IETs' needs; and the importance of consistency, trust and honesty in building collaborative relationships that foster IETs' successful integration into the teaching field. Recommendations include: the delivery of equity-oriented programming through educational bodies; the development of sustainable occupation-specific teacher mentoring programs; and the promotion of IETs to the greater community by educational stakeholders.


M n gement ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 38-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Laszczuk ◽  
Julie C. Mayer

Attention is considered as a critical driver for business model (BM) innovation in established firms, where existing activities already absorb internal actors’ time and effort. Although previous studies acknowledge the role of attention to detect opportunities or to generate new ideas, we still need to understand how actors deal with attentional tensions inherent in the development of a new additive BM. This article addresses this issue by adopting an attention-based view of BM innovation, that is, by examining the forms of attention involved in the process of developing a new BM. Through a longitudinal study in a small consulting company, we unfold an incremental and ongoing process of new BM development. Our findings identify three attentional stages triggered by specific mechanisms that drive BM innovation, from detecting new ideas to their implementation. The attentional perspective we use in this study revises the role of a prevailing BM in the emergence of new business logics in established firms. While previous studies consider it as an impediment for BM innovation, we reveal that actors can develop new BMs by navigating between differentiation and consistency with the prevailing BM.


MANUSYA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Amara Prasithrathsint

Hedging means mitigating words so as to lessen the impact of an utterance. It may cause uncertainty in language but is regarded as an important feature in English academic writing. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the style of academic writing in English with particular reference to the significant role of hedging and the linguistic features that mark it. The data was taken from academic articles in the humanities written by native speakers of English, Filipino speakers of English, and Thai speakers of English. It is hypothesized that speakers of English as a foreign language use fewer and different hedging devices than native speakers of English. The result of the analysis shows that the prominent linguistic markers of hedging are the auxiliaries may, might, could, the verbs suggest, appear, seem, and the adverbs perhaps and often. They are divided into three groups according to their stylistic attributes of hedging; namely, probability, indetermination, and approximation. The use of hedging found in the data confirms what Hyman (1994) says; i.e., that hedging allows writers to express their uncertainty about the truth of their statements. It is also found that English native speakers use hedges most frequently. The Filipino speakers of English are the second, and the Thai speakers of English use hedges the least frequency. This implies that hedging is likely to be related to the level of competence in English including knowledge of stylistic variation, and that it needs to be formally taught to those who speak English as a second or foreign language.


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