"From out-group to in-group: Exercising agency for gaining membership t" by Ying Li, Liming Deng et al.
Drawing upon the temporal notion of agency from both sociocultural and ecological perspectives, this study reports a cross-case analysis of narratives conducted to examine how three L2 writers exercised agency for identity construction to gain membership of their target Master's degree programs through statement of purposes (SOP) writing. It is found that the students' perceptions of SOP writing, self-identities and the available affordances rendered them capable of making choices about how to handle their writing, taking deliberate actions in the writing process, and producing desir...