Performing support in higher education: negotiating conflicting agendas in academic language and learning advisory work

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article critically explores neoliberal administrative priorities and the ways in which they shape and constrain academic language and learning (ALL) advisory practice in the Australian higher education sector. Drawing on semi-structured interview data collected from in-service ALL advisors working in Australian universities, we highlight a disjuncture between the participants’ understandings of effective practice and the institutional framing of ALL advisory work as a mechanism to improve accessibility of higher study and retention of diversifying student cohorts. The data indicate the potential for institutional priorities to generate dilemmas in advisors’ daily practice as they are tasked with performing support via formats considered antithetical to meeting students’ needs and fostering productive approaches to study. Under these circumstances, participants characterised collaboration between advisors and content specialists in the pursuit of more embedded approaches as dependent on individual endeavours and stymied by a lack of institutional support. We call for renewed consideration of the formats and affordances with which advisors work in order to better align ALL advisory practice with the holistic development of students’ academic literacy skills.