**1. Introduction**

Overcrowding, globalization, internationalization and the policies related higher education, have developed a complex and diverse student population in di fferent parts of the world [1–3]. In this environment, the sustainability of universities, understood as their survival in the long term, involves attending to the diversity of their students and being inclusive. Students, entering universities, regardless of their linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds, struggle to cope with the academic

communicative competence demands of their degree programs. In fact, most of the universities are implementing some form of in-sessional academic literacy support to develop their students' language proficiency [4].

The provision of academic literacy in universities tends towards centralization. Thus, linguistic support is being o ffered for general academic literacy purposes rather than language development, which responds in a more nuanced way to the particular literacy needs of student disciplines. However, in recent years, few studies have supported the integration of academic literacy into the teaching of subjects that describe the principles of an inclusive model of academic literacy instruction [5,6]. This is in line with Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that focused on inclusive education skills. In particular, objective 4.4 aims to "substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills at di fferent educational levels, including the university" [2]. Besides, this work is also aligned with objective 10 of the SDGs, which is reducing inequality within and between countries. Using inclusive policies in the university that allow students from many countries to access a quality university education reinforces equal development between countries.

Academic literacy refers to the ability to communicate competently in an academic discourse community (being competent in reading and writing on academic subjects). However, Porter [3] argued that this capacity requires the epistemological knowledge of the community, of the genres through which the community interacts, and of the conventions that regulate these interactions. This understanding of academic literacy has two main implications. First, academic literacy must be acquired by all students new in an academic context, whether native speakers or not. Second, outside of the community in which they operate, this literacy cannot be acquired. This means that experts from the discursive community must o ffer instruction and support to all students [4,5].

In the current university context in the United Kingdom, there is concern for long-term sustainability and there is a wide recognition of the need for student support in order to develop their academic literacy. Thus, an important body of literature has emerged that argues that academic literacy should integrate at the curricular level [4,5,7–10]. Specifically, in the 2017–2018 academic year, the total number of students enrolled in institutions of higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom amounted to 2.34 million. The growth of the sector has led to the configuration of increasingly diverse student populations on both issues, culturally and linguistically, reflecting the so-called "super diversity" [11].

In fact, there are currently 1.88 million students from the United Kingdom, 0.14 million from the European Union (EU) and 0.32 million from non-EU countries [12]. Therefore, there is increasing pressure on British universities to improve the retention, progress and performance levels of this population and to ensure that their academic o ffer recognizes diversity [12].

As a result, "student experience" has become a central concept in institutional planning. According to a study conducted in 2019 on the experience of freshmen in the United Kingdom, "lack of academic progress" is a key reason why a substantial number of undergraduate students drop out of their degree programs [13].

The integration of academic literacy in teaching subjects has been slow and, so far, the literature includes few examples of this, taken from the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa [6,14–21]. These publications on educational initiatives of collaboration and specific discipline raise a series of questions. For example, there is no explicit explanation of the teaching methods and theoretical frameworks that support them [4,5]. Therefore, it is not clear to what extent literacy instruction is integrated within the curricula, or if on the contrary it is only a complement to them. In addition, little information is provided on the degree to which English language specialists for academic purposes (EAP), subject teachers and other related persons are involved in literacy. This lack of information makes it di fficult for other institutions and individual professionals to learn from these examples and develop similar approaches [4,5].

#### **2. Pedagogical Approaches to Academic Literacy: The Deficit and the Inclusive Collaborative Models**

The most widely used approach in academic writing instruction is the Deficit or Skills model. This approach considers writing as a discrete skill and characterizes students as guilty of their "writing defects" [22,23]. Provision is usually carried out in generic workshops of extracurricular academic skills taught by centralized learning development units. These are usually located in the library or in student support services. The skills approach has predominated, as it o ffers a convenient and cost-e ffective reference route for "struggling" students. In addition, research on the e ffectiveness of generic skills workshops highlights that o ffering students opportunities and successful and enriching adaptive help is correlated with academic success [23–26]. However, generic workshops only capture superficial features of writing and do not address the "pluralistic nature of academic literacy" [27]. Therefore, they neglect the link between epistemology, discipline and language [13,27–29]. By separating writing from its disciplinary context, the skills approach places literacy on the periphery of university study. As a consequence, it contributes to the negative perception that both academics and students may have about their role in disciplinary teaching and learning [4,5].

The Inclusive Collaborative Model is the dominant critical framework for challenging the Skills or Deficit Model. This model emphasizes that literacies are socially located within their disciplinary contexts [28]. Within the disciplines there are very old and very di fferentiated literacy practices [29–32] in the construction of knowledge, such as research articles [33,34]. Similarly, the reproduction of knowledge has been performed through textbooks [33] and conferences [35]. Proponents of academic literacies a ffirm that the teaching of writing is most e ffective when it is within the discipline within which the literacy takes place [4,5,33,34,36,37]. In addition, the acquisition of academic literacy is an incremental process that requires frequent feedback on its development [38]. Therefore, academic literacy, an integral part of disciplinary thinking, is possibly more e ffective when integrated into the disciplinary culture and delivered longitudinally, using an inclusive and sustainable approach integrated into the curriculum.

Studies of literacy integration in the literature have typically focused on scheduled and specific academic writing interventions that are planned and delivered by teachers of the subject [5,12,39]. These are taught jointly by both professors of the subject and specialists in academic writing [5,40–42]. A common factor in these studies is the importance of collaboration between specialists in academic writing and subject teachers [13,40,43–45]. In fact, academic writing teachers, with their specialized knowledge in pedagogy and metalanguage, are important collaborative partners in the explicit articulation of the di fferent disciplinary ways of building knowledge [13,43–45]. However, perfecting collaborative approaches to integrate academic literacy into subject teaching can be a gradual process. A study conducted in 2002 explained that, in the first instance, literacy specialists and subject teachers generally cooperate in the design of academic literacy materials that are integrated with the teaching of subjects [46]. Over time, this cooperation can lead to a close collaboration in the design of materials and, finally, to teaching as a team the specific academic literacy sessions of the subject.

The key benefit of developing a close collaboration is that writing is placed at the center of disciplinary learning and teaching, providing the best context to identify and address the specific di fficulties students have when beginning disciplinary discourse [46].

In order for academic literacy to be integrated into higher education curricula, key stakeholders must be persuaded of the value and feasibility of systematic approaches integrated into the curriculum [45]. A starting point is that the institution's literacy o fficers facilitate a better appreciation by all academics of the complexities of social and writing practices in their community and o ffer them a sustainable model of literacy integration [27]. Wingate [4,5] defends an inclusive model of academic literacy instruction, advocating the adoption of the language of socialization and sociocultural theory as analytical frameworks for interpreting both academic literacy instruction and the systematic and gradual mastery of students from various disciplines, as well as the social and academic background of the defining conceptual basis of university disciplines. For Wingate [4], academic literacy is the ability to communicate competently in an academic discourse community. This study, as discussed later in the methodology section, used a framework developed by Wingate [5] for the curricular interaction of academic literacy (see Table 1).


**Table 1.** Framework for Curriculum-Integrating Academic Literacy.

Source: Wingate (2015:60).
