From conscientization to institutional enactment: The discursive realisation of transformative agency in higher education

This article examines the discursive construction and public performance of transformative agency in a university context, drawing on a longitudinal participatory action research project (EquiLing, 2020–2025) conducted in universities in Madrid. Rather than viewing transformative agency as an individual attribute, it is approached as a socially and discursively constituted form of action, shaped within an educational field characterised by institutional hierarchies, meritocratic evaluation and the unequal distribution of symbolic capital. Focusing on the 2025 Languages Day celebrations, the study analyses how students articulate transformative action. These actions emerge from processes of conscientisation and collective reflection on linguistic inequalities and aim to challenge them beyond the classroom. Through an analysis of recurrent discursive patterns in interviews conducted in Spanish alongside students’ project displays, the study explores how participants frame actions that rework both their position as institutional actors and others’ possibilities of access and participation, rendering these interventions meaningful as transformative.