The complexity of disciplinary literacy and identity in STEM: A case study of student language use in project-based learning

Disciplinary literacy has gained more recognition in STEM education as understanding subject is inextricably linked to mastering specialised ways of communicating science to different audiences. In project-based learning (PBL), STEM students must apply such literacies across multiple communicative contexts. However, current pedagogies often prioritise high-stakes academic communication while overlooking the everyday interactional processes through which student disciplinary literacy and identities are developed. This study explores the communicative practices of a group of engineering students during a PBL course in Sweden. Using a linguistic ethnography and case study approach, the study followed the group’s project trajectory, drawing on self-reflection journals, student documents, observations and interviews to examine how these students navigated disciplinary literacy in learning. A mid-course academic failure, a “crisis moment,” served as an analytical entry point to trace shifts in the students’ multilingual and multi-sited communication and identity construction. The findings reveal the students’ communication and identity struggles across academic, workplace, and interpersonal domains were closely interconnected, and that students constructed a “vulnerable student” identity through multilingual and multi-sited communicative practices to navigate institutional uncertainty and access support. The study highlights disciplinary literacy as an interactional, identity-mediated practice and emphasizes the need for STEM education to move beyond text-centric approach to support students’ identity work and communicative competence across contexts.