Beyond the STEM Comfort Zone: Activating Disciplinary Literacy to Enable Student Success Through Diversity

How are student expectations aligned with the reality of higher education? As the students attending university continue to diversify, academics struggle to create meaningful learning experiences. This article summons authenticity as a trope and tool to activate disciplinary literacy for the diversity of students that now populate the laboratories, fieldwork and classrooms of higher education. In moving beyond homology and experience, university academics can step beyond their comfort zone and create meaningful learning for the massified and marketized higher education sector. The goal of this article is to align disciplinary literacies from science and education, requiring all teachers to move beyond their personal and professional experiences, and towards authentic – and challenging – learning.