‘Is it ever enough?’ Exploring academic language and learning advisory identities through small stories

Abstract

Contemporarily, higher education workplaces are characterised by collaboration, transitions, fluidity and the crossing of boundaries, where individuals are involved in ongoing negotiation of multilayered identities and simultaneous membership to various groups. These conditions impact the negotiation of professional identities, work and work relationships. One group of professionals affected by the impetus to fluidly operate within institutions are academic language and learning (ALL) advisors. In this article, we explore the identity negotiation of a novice ALL advisor through a positioning lens, focusing on small stories conveyed during an interview. We highlight the ways in which she constructs identities vis-à-vis interactions with students and within the ideological and institutional structures of the contemporary university. This article contributes an important new perspective to existing depictions of ALL advisors as a marginalised group of professionals, making space for the study of advisory agency alongside structural analyses. While continuing to negotiate structural challenges, we argue that the participant’s sense of agency needs to be garnered to strengthen group identity and allow for professionals to transition to the role.