Reading, writing and speaking in higher education graduate profiles: contrasts across institutions and majors

Abstract

The so-called knowledge societies are characterized by demands to participate in complex and dynamic forms of citizenship, administrative, and professional roles, which require expert writers and speakers. However, previous studies suggest that literacy is relegated to the hidden curriculum in higher education. This study aims to identify the presence of reading, writing, and speaking in curricular instruments central to higher education, in Chile. The research involved ten universities selected to represent a variety of institutional projects and five different majors, and 50 public graduate profiles and ten educational models were collected. Explicit and implicit allusions to literacy skills were qualitatively coded, together with underlying conceptions of literacy, and occurrences were quantified. Results show that reading, writing, and speaking are either hidden or infrequent, and depicted as reproductive, basic skills in graduate profiles in Chilean higher education, particularly in majors such as Pedagogy in Primary Education. These findings suggest that competency-based educational innovation and accreditation processes in higher education need to be revised to include updated understandings of reading, writing, and speaking as complex, epistemic, and situated rhetorical skills that require explicit teaching and institutional commitment for future graduates.