Social Justice and Written Culture: Reflections from Higher Education

Abstract

This reflective article examines how academic literacy is aligned with social justice as an educational project, focusing on facilitating smoother and more relevant pathways for students to engage and persist in university settings, thereby enabling their participation in academic written culture. This reflection is rooted in our qualitative and ethnographic research and emphasizes the following argumentative lines: 1) the democratization of higher education in Latin America remains a challenge despite inclusive policies; 2) academic literacy advocates for a departure from deficit-based perspectives regarding access to literate practices; 3) social justice is integral to the agenda of academic literacy studies. Empirical studies are presented to illustrate the ways in which the field of academic literacy identifies hegemonic literate practices, vernacular forms of appropriation of written culture, and the tensions that arise between them. The article addresses these dynamics while acknowledging the strategies of resistance and re-existence employed by social actors. The conclusion reflects on the implications of these considerations for the dimensions of teaching, research, and institutional frameworks.