Graduate Student Academic Socialization through Mentored Writing Interactions: Between Empowerment and Marginalization
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Rincon, Guadalupe
- Graduate Program:
- Applied Linguistics
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 15, 2022
- Committee Members:
- Suresh Canagarajah, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Mari Haneda, Outside Unit & Field Member
Karen Johnson, Major Field Member
Sinfree Makoni, Major Field Member
Celeste S Kinginger, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies - Keywords:
- academic socialization
interthinking
identity development
agency
academic writing - Abstract:
- Academic socialization research into the development of academic language and scholarly identities has revealed how talk-in-interaction facilitates the acculturation into academic practices and communities (Seloni, 2012). However, studies overlook how social and power inequalities inform the micro-processes of interactions that foster socialization, and how these shape graduate student agency and identity (Duff, 2010; Kobayashi, Zappa-Hollman, Duff, 2017). This dissertation examines the relationship between interactions and instructional activity in writing group meetings, in order to determine how relationships in these discussions inform graduate student socialization into academic writing practices and scholarly identity formation This project draws on theoretical frameworks on identity, which see identity as fragmented and fluid, and often implicated in power structures that are reproduced in everyday interactions (Block, 2007; Creese & Blackledge, 2015; Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton-Peirce, 1995). By depicting how the parameters of discipline-specific activities influence talk-in-interaction and the ways graduate students are positioned, this dissertation delineates the relationship between micro-processes in talk and graduate student agency. The data includes writing samples and 12 interactions (hour-long) from three different writing groups (WGs), where students discuss their research writing with faculty and peers as part of their professionalization. Eleven doctoral students in the Humanities from mixed racial, linguistic, and geographical backgrounds participated in the study. Analysis focuses on conversational ground rules (Mercer, 2002; the emergent, co-constructed, and co-enacted “unspoken rules of interactions”) to examine the mutual influences of language use and activity. By outlining micro-processes in interaction, this paper demonstrates how graduate students are positioned into roles that are either marginalizing or empowering in interaction and in activity, such that graduate students are or are not afforded opportunities to engage in activities that inform their sense of scholarly identity development. Findings suggest that the meeting structure in each group impacts the conversational ground rules which shape discussions on writing. Meeting procedures and the use of artifacts (e.g., Google Docs, texts, embedded comments, talk-in-interaction) shape differences in writing activities, subsequently positioning graduate students in empowering or marginalizing roles, which in turn impacts their agency. Such insights illustrate the relevance of communicative practices that may be taken for granted, and offer doctoral advisors the academic socialization and professionalization of their graduate students.