Tracing interacting literacy practices in master's dissertation writing

Kathrin Kaufhold

doi:10.18546/lre.15.1.07

Abstract

Academic literacy practices are increasingly varied, influenced by the diverse education and language backgrounds of students and staff, interdisciplinary approaches, and collaborations with non-university groups such as business partners. Completing a master's dissertation thus requires students to negotiate literacy practices associated with different domains. To enable an investigation of conditions for such negotiations, this article extends the concept of literacy practices by combining insights from Academic Literacies, New Literacy Studies and Schatzki's (1996) social practice ontology. The resulting framework is applied in a case study of a student who negotiates academic requirements and entrepreneurial goals in completing a master's dissertation.

Highlights

Knowledge production in higher education is becoming increasingly diverse due to the varied education and language backgrounds of students and staff, interdisciplinary approaches, and collaborations with private sector partners (Baynham, 2000; Lam, 2010; Rampton et al, 2014)
They have considered what literacies students bring to their studies from previous, often nonacademic, literacy experiences and how such literacies are frequently less valued in comparison to the dominant academic literacies.A central question in Academic Literacies (AcLits) and the related tradition of New Literacy Studies (NLS) is how the inclusion of extracurricular literacies can support student learning and potentially transform knowledge production in academia (Ivanič et al, 2009; Lillis et al, 2015)
To gain a deeper understanding of such repurposing processes, the article synthesizes and extends the concept of literacy practices, which is central to AcLits perspectives on the social situatedness of academic writing

Summary

Introduction

Knowledge production in higher education is becoming increasingly diverse due to the varied education and language backgrounds of students and staff, interdisciplinary approaches, and collaborations with private sector partners (Baynham, 2000; Lam, 2010; Rampton et al, 2014). Academic Literacies (AcLits) researchers and practitioners have long highlighted the heterogeneous nature of writing in higher education (for example, Lea and Street, 1998) They have considered what literacies students bring to their studies from previous, often nonacademic, literacy experiences and how such literacies are frequently less valued in comparison to the dominant academic literacies (for example, Jones et al, 1999).A central question in AcLits and the related tradition of New Literacy Studies (NLS) is how the inclusion of extracurricular literacies can support student learning and potentially transform knowledge production in academia (Ivanič et al, 2009; Lillis et al, 2015). In completing their master’s dissertations, students usually negotiate some of their prior literacy experiences associated with academic and non-academic domains and the academic writing requirements of their current degree programme (Kaufhold, 2015)

74 Kathrin Kaufhold

Conclusion

Notes on the contributor