Milestones, disciplines and the future of initiatives of reading and writing in higher education: an analysis from key scholars in the field in latin america

Abstract

Abstracthis paper aims to understand the initial milestones, causes, academic activities, theoretical foundations and disciplines involved in the scholarly development of Higher Education reading and writing studies in Latin America. Eight academic leaders from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and México were interviewed in order to learn their perspectives on this development. Findings reveal that the main founding milestones are conferences starting by the 2000's decade; the UNESCO Chair is the current main academic network that congregates scholars interested in this topic; the reasons for the ield's emergence are related to the increasing growth in college enrolments. Overall, a growing interdisciplinary ield can be observed, but its disciplinary identity is still difuse, given the ongoing jurisdictional disputes.

The language of educational linguistics in Hispanic Latin America

“…Bazerman et al 2017). Research has focused on the development and configuration of the field (conflicting and conflating mother disciplines, topics, methods, frameworks, institutional contexts, among others) from the perspective of scholars (Tapia et al 2016), as well as from content analysis of their publications (Navarro et al 2016). Furthermore, research has also studied typical discursive and linguistic features of the discipline's language (Ávila Reyes 2017; Navarro & Ávila Reyes 2014), trying to understand how it realizes the discipline's epistemological and cultural configuration.…”

Academic writing in higher education: focusing on courses of graduate programs of a public Brazilian university

“…As the studies presented show, there seems to be a consensus in the area regarding the various obstacles academic writing still faces in Latin America (CARLINO, 2013;TAPIA-LADINO et al, 2016) and Brazil (BORK et al, 2014;VIEIRA, 2016;FERREIRA;LOUSADA, 2016). This study, therefore, aims at contributing to this diagnosis with the ultimate goal of supporting and grounding future actions and changes in the academic writing context.…”

“…In an attempt to relate the importance of teaching academic writing and the actual reality of universities, many studies have been seeking to establish a diagnosis of the writing studies panorama in higher education, mainly concerning Latin America universities BAZERMAN et al, 2016;MARINKOVICH et al, 2016;TAPIA-LADINO et al, 2016;VIEIRA, 2016). Following this trend and considering the importance of academic writing in higher education, this paper adds to existing research on the current panorama of writing studies in higher education by providing a diagnosis of the academic writing treatment in a Brazilian university.…”

“…Students writing and the concern for improving academic writing have been the objects of a growing body of research MARINKOVICH et al, 2016;RUSSEL, 1991). More specifically, it is acknowledged that a stronger systematic scholarly interest in reading and writing at Higher Educational level started at the beginning of the 2000s (TAPIA-LADINO et al, 2016). Such interest is originated from the recognition that when entering the university context, students are required to possess a different kind of knowledge -the specialized one -which was not covered by initial literacy acquired during elementary and secondary school (MARINKOVICH et al, 2016;FERREIRA;LOUSADA, 2016;VIEIRA, 2016).…”

Postsecondary writing studies in Hispanic Latin America: Intertextual dynamics and intellectual influence

“…This study is only a step in a longer research agenda on the identities, epistemologies, and ideologies of the field, and it adds to other projects that have tried to map the development of postsecondary writing in the field Navarro et al, 2016;Ortiz Casallas, 2011;Tapia-Ladino et al, 2016). Although some of these studies have tackled publishing practices to understand the field, none of them has done it through citation research.…”