LITERACY ACROSS BOUNDARIES : WRITING PRACTICES OF NON-TRADITIONAL STUDENTS IN THEIR TRANSITION TO HIGHER EDUCATION

Montes Sanchez, Soledad and Tusting, Karin (2026) LITERACY ACROSS BOUNDARIES : WRITING PRACTICES OF NON-TRADITIONAL STUDENTS IN THEIR TRANSITION TO HIGHER EDUCATION. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

This study explores how students in their last year of secondary school express their identities and agency in writing, both within and outside the classroom. Relying on 26 interviews with 13 students from economically deprived backgrounds who want to pursue higher education, we aim to identify which writing practices support and which ones hinder students’ identity work and agency in school and non-academic settings. Our research shows that writing practices enable students to explore and enact agency, meaning and identity to varying degrees across different domains. We found that school offers few opportunities for agentive writing and that students frequently have to adjust to teachers’ voices and views. We also found that students have more meaningful and engaging experiences with writing when they are able to express their opinions, make choices in their texts’ structure and style, express feelings and document their experiences in their writing. Lastly, our findings suggest that students use writing for identity work across domains, particularly when it comes to imagining professional identities they aspire to.