Drops in the Ocean: Rooted Academic Identities and Transformational Resistance in a College Assistance Migrant Program

Aim/Purpose: This study explores the development of academic identity among a group of Asian international doctoral students at a U.S. research university in various settings, including interacting with students and faculty members and reflecting on their personal journeys. Background: In 2020-2021, 132, 000 international doctoral students enrolled in U.S. universities – an increase of 71% since 2000. Despite this, relatively little is known about their academic identity development and how acculturative stress affects their academic growth. Methodology: A conceptual framework was constructed to integrate the concepts of acculturative stress and academic identity development. With the premise that academic identity development comprises three strands of intellectual, network, and institutional, the current framework conceptualizes the intersection of acculturative stress in all three strands to explore the tensions of balancing home-host culture values while international doctoral students grow into a new identity. Reflexive thematic analysis was applied to study the narratives of eight Asian international doctoral students and identified four main themes characterizing the participants’ academic identity development under acculturative stress. Contribution: This study contributes to an understudied area of higher education literature, directing the attention of the academic community to a small but growing group of junior academics. When examined in the confluence with acculturative stress, the conceptualization of academic identity is extended to include academics from cultural minorities. Findings: Acculturative stress intersects with all three strands of academic identity development, inhibiting participants’ progress in their doctoral programs. Acculturative stress also makes participants more hesitant to adopt an academic identity. Recommendations for Practitioners: This paper informs leaders and managers at departmental and university levels about cultural inclusiveness in doctoral training programs. Cultural minority students face the challenge of acculturative stress, an issue that distinguishes them from racial or gender minority groups; therefore, simply replicating race or gender inclusion initiatives is unlikely to be an ideal model for a culturally inclusive program. Recommendation for Researchers: The findings of this study indicate that Asian doctoral international students deviate from the commonly accepted view of academic identity in that they do not define intellectual growth strictly in terms of paper-trailed achievements (e.g., number of publications or grants), and they view jobs within and outside academia as equally attractive. Impact on Society: Doctoral training programs at universities are the suppliers of doctoral-level workers for industry. However, some programs, especially in the social sciences and humanities, focus on academic job placements. To broaden the impact on society, educational leaders need to expand the professional development training elements in such programs to prepare doctoral candidates for opportunities outside of academia. Future Research: Other aspects of doctoral training programs could be explored, such as the development of instructor identity and the changes in student identity.

This study reports on the experiences of early career academics (ECAs) in a private Malaysian higher education (HE) institution and its impact on their academic identity. Through the use of a qualitative inquiry, the findings revealed that the ECAs’ academic identity development was imbued with challenges and complexities, as they navigated academia. Due to the performative culture in HE, the formation of a stable identity is continuously challenged by the demands represented by the institutional context. ECAs reported having to negotiate their core academic identity as teachers due to tensions from having to assume multiple roles in the organization. The findings also revealed narratives of resistance and marginalization, highlighting misconceptions about academia and the disconnect between the ECAs’ personal, professional and organizational goals, which contribute to the global literature on the academic profession in two respects. First, it contributes to the empirically grounded knowledge of the complex manner on how ECAs negotiate, challenge or comply with the new managerialist agenda. Second, it explores the emerging academic identity that the ECAs are forming under this competitive HE context. The study proposes strategies for a more inclusive career development process to nurture and support ECAs in the HE setting.

Purpose This study aims to unveil the shaping process of doctoral students’ academic identity under supervision, the impediments that constrain it, and the factors that facilitate it. Design/methodology/approach Supported by an integrated conceptual framework of supervision and communities of practice (CoPs), a systematic review was performed to examine studies from 2006 to 2025. Findings Doctoral students develop their academic identities through academic participation and learning from and utilising their supervisors as role models, catalysts, and gatekeepers. Their identity-developing endeavour is constrained by personal limitations, supervisory relationships, and challenges in the academic community. Noticing the challenges facing doctoral students in developing their academic identities, scholars proposed that changes can be made by Ph.D. candidates, supervisors, and institutions. Originality/value This study contributes to explicating doctoral students’ academic identity formation under supervisory interactions. It advances higher education scholarship in doctoral education, empowerment of academics, and improvement of supervision mechanisms.

Purpose Student-led journals have a long history, yet they have received little attention in academic publishing and higher education research. This study aims to fill this gap and enrich the analysis of student-led publications from a novel point of view: the role of journals in shaping the academic identity of graduate students through a collaborative autoethnographic study. Design/methodology/approach The authors explore their personal experiences as student editors of Current Issues in Education (CIE) produced at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (MLFTC) at Arizona State University (ASU). The data were collected by first writing a personal narrative about their experiences serving on CIE’s editorial board. To support their notes, they drew from their memories and informal conversations with other student editors and reviewers, as well as advisors. They also drew upon some of CIE’s internal documents, such as editorial meeting minutes. Findings This study aligns with Inouye and McAlpine's (2019) systematic review of academic identity development for doctoral students, highlighting editorial work’s relevance to developing academic identity, particularly related to reflective thinking, authorial identity, confidence and learning through critique. Participating in the publication landscape through academic journals allows students to develop their authorial voice and collective identity as academics. Research limitations/implications It is authors’ hope that this autoethnography provides a unique perspective for doctoral programs to consider how students can shape their scholarly identity outside of formal classroom learning. More pointedly, this study could be considered a useful resource for those institutions that run student-journals or plan to do so. The authors’ experiences could inform the policies that frame the day-to-day editorial practices, such as the peer review procedures. Originality/value This study demonstrates how student journals, as third spaces, provide opportunities for constructive interactions that contribute to the construction of academic identity and offer a platform for student engagement in scholarly publishing processes, ultimately boosting their confidence as writers and sense of belonging to academia.

ABSTRACTAcademic identity is a key factor that facilitates learning. Many factors influence academic identity, and peers exert crucial influence that has been broadened by social media. Therefore, this study focuses on the possible impact of this broadened scope of peer relationships on adolescents’ development of academic identity. A retrospective analysis was adopted to investigate how recent high school graduates perceived online social capital, peer relationships and academic identity during high school life. A total of 1,286 Chinese high school graduates (510 males and 776 females) participated in the survey. Correlation, mediated regression and moderated multiple regressions were applied to data analysis. Results confirmed that the surveyed Chinese adolescents frequently used social media, and they accessed such platforms mostly at home. These students perceived more emotional than substantive support from social media, and their use of these platforms affected the observed academic identity. This effect was reflected in the positive association between online social capital and academic identity and the partial mediating role of peer relationships on this association. Meanwhile, the gender and region variables moderated the association between online social capital and academic identity. Finally, the implications of these results for research and practice were discussed.

Research suggests that the role of parents is essential to the educational trajectories of Latinx college students, including their access to and graduation from postsecondary education. In this study we use Latino male collegians’ narratives to examine how Latina mothers influence their sons’ educational trajectories. Twenty-four Latinos from four universities participated in a three-step interview process. Secondary data analysis led to the emergence of several themes, including the influence of mothers. Using pedagogies of the home to guide the analysis, data revealed that Latina mothers influence their sons’: (1) educational trajectories and (2) academic identity development. The findings extend what is known about pedagogies of the home, as we describe the characteristics of Latinx mother-son pedagogies and how those influence Latinos’ academic development. This study contributes to what is known about familial influence on Latino collegians’ academic development.

By studying the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as a community of practice and learning space for academic identity development, this paper studies the creation of environmental expertise within expert organizations. The study focuses its analysis on how IPBES through its fellowship programme contributes to academic identity development among early-career researchers, including providing new contextual references to understand what it means to engage in and balance biodiversity research, teaching, and service. The study is based on interviews with early-career researchers who participated in the production of the IPBES’s Global Assessment Report. The study shows how the IPBES fellowship programme, by introducing its fellows into the organization’s community of practice simultaneously, contributes to their academic identity development and the creation and maintenance of the boundaries of environmental expertise. The analysis further shows how the fellows develop an academic identity that unites two different communities of practice of equal importance for their understanding of what they are supposed to do as academics and widens their understanding of what it means to be a successful academic.

The changing landscape of higher education (HE) and the expansion of academic work have impacted on academic identity development. However, there is very little known about the academic identity development of English language teachers who transition from teaching in the school sector to working in higher learning institutions in Malaysia. This paper thus seeks to explore how university English teachers’ (UET) academic identities are developed and to identify factors that are pertinent to this development through the lens of self-concept. Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews and the analysis was done using the framework of self-concept. The findings reveal that UETs’ self-concepts are dynamic constructs influenced by multiple internal and external factors from their past and present contexts. When UETs were placed into a new setting, they had to reflect on and re-evaluate their abilities in order to adapt to internal and situational changes. Self-concept thus played a role in restructuring the self and is strongly associated with motivation and is driven by goals for self-improvement. The findings of this study suggest that strategies which can support and sustain a positive transition for UETs into academia be implemented to ensure improved recruitment and retention.

Background and Aim: Higher education, as a system tasked with training thoughtful and creative human resources, plays a significant role in development, advancement, and the production of new knowledge. The current study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of teaching cognitive and metacognitive strategies on academic identity among students of Tehran University of Applied Sciences, conducted in the 2020-2021 academic year. Methods: This research, in terms of purpose, was applied and of a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up with a control group. The population included all students of the University of Applied Sciences in the 2020-2021 academic year, utilizing convenience sampling due to the need for a therapeutic protocol training method. The sample size comprised 30 individuals, randomly assigned with 10 in the cognitive experiment group, 10 in the metacognitive experiment group, and 10 in the control group. The data collection tool was the Wass and Isaacson (2008) Academic Identity Questionnaire. Both experimental groups underwent training in cognitive and metacognitive strategies for 8 sessions. Data were analyzed using two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (mixed between-within subjects-design). Results: The results of the effectiveness of cognitive and metacognitive strategy training showed that it only significantly impacted follow-through academic identity (F=3.91, P=0.032) and this effect was sustained in the follow-up phase. Conclusion: Overall, considering the impact of self-regulated learning skills on students' academic identity, it can be concluded that as students' success in academics and academic challenges is crucial; therefore, enhancing self-regulation can lead to an improvement in the process of academic identity formation.

ABSTRACTThis review article is concerned with the construction of identity in academic discourse. It examines recent journal articles and monographs in applied linguistics and considers various perspectives on the issue. After a brief introduction and review of the theoretical background relating to identity, followed by a characterization of academic discourse and how it relates to identity theory, the article explores the following topics: linguistic resources for audience engagement; voice and academic identity; disciplinary identity; identity in peripheral academic genres; academic identity development over time; academic identity and English as a lingua franca; power, ideology, and critical language awareness in academic identity construction; language reuse, intertextuality, and academic identity; pedagogically oriented studies and academic identity construction; and methodological diversity and innovation in the study of academic identity. The article concludes with suggestions for future work in the field of academic identity research.

The development of academic identity in graduate nursing students: An interpretive descriptive study

Academic dishonesty has become a pressing concern in higher education, as illustrated by 2024 data from the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK) indicating that more than half of respondents admitted to engaging in cheating. Such behavior may be shaped by academic identity status, defined as an individual’s self-perception and commitment within the academic domain. However, empirical evidence on this association remains scarce, particularly among Indonesian undergraduate students. The present study examined differences in academic dishonesty across academic identity statuses in a sample of 216 Indonesian undergraduates aged 18–25 years. Using a quantitative design, participants completed the Academic Dishonesty Scale and the Academic Identity Measure (AIM). A one-way ANOVA revealed significant differences in academic dishonesty scores across identity statuses, F(3, 212) = 5.239, p = .002, η² = .069. Post hoc comparisons indicated that students with a moratorium identity status reported higher levels of academic dishonesty than those with an achievement identity status, whereas no other pairwise differences reached statistical significance. These findings extend the literature on academic dishonesty by integrating identity status theory within the Indonesian higher education context and suggest that academic identity development should be considered when designing targeted preventive and remedial interventions in universities.

The present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of teaching cognitive and metacognitive strategies in academic identity among the students of Tehran University of Applied Sciences. This is an applied research in terms of purpose and a quasi-experimental study in terms of method, with pre/post-test, follow-up phase, and control group. The statistical population included all students of the University of Applied Sciences in the academic year of 2020-2021. Due to the need for training treatment protocol, the samples (30 participants) were selected through a convenience sampling method. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 20 students were randomly assigned to the experimental groups (10 in the cognitive learning strategies group and 10 in the metacognitive learning strategies group) and 10 students were assigned into to the control group. Data was collected using Waz and Isaacson Educational Identity Questionnaire (2008). Cognitive and metacognitive strategies were trained to the experimental groups for 8 sessions. Data were analyzed using two-way repeated measures ANOVA (between-subject and within-subject mixed design). The results confirmed the effectiveness of teaching cognitive strategies in academic identity development.

Academics are constantly undergoing identity shifts in response to globalisation, marketisation and the impact of technology on academic work. This study investigates the impact of a Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (GCHE) on academic identity development in an Australian University. GCHE graduates and their educators were interviewed to examine whether such extended and reflective professional development might support the negotiation of complex identity shifts. Findings indicated that academic identity development was enabled through this professional development by re-engaging individual academics in the diverse, traditional components of teaching, research and administration, working against the neoliberal trend of role-compartmentalisation for efficiency.

This study examines how Undergraduate Research (UR) mentoring fits into the career profile of award-winning UR mentors and the factors that motivate engagement as UR mentors. Twenty-four award-winning UR mentors in four countries were interviewed about their mentoring practices. Six themes emerged: (1) Academic Identity and Motivations; (2) Challenges to Academic Identity and Career Development; (3) Enhanced Research Productivity; (4) Recognition and Reward; (5) Institution Values Commitment and (6) Developing Other Mentors. The authors discuss these themes and how the findings can be utilized for academic development and identity formation for faculty.