An exploratory study of academic literacy socialization: Building genre awareness in a teacher education program John S. Hedgcock * , Heekyeong Lee Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, 460 Pierce St, Monterey CA 93940 USA article info Article history: Received 12 August 2016 Received in revised form 4 January 2017 Accepted 24 January 2017 Keywords: Academic literacy Genre Genre awareness Teacher education abstract As apprenticeship models have evolved, language teacher education (LTE) has increasingly adopted evidence-based approaches to teacher preparation. Intended to promote subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and procedural knowledge, LTE curricula often target novice teachers' agency, identity construction, and critical aware- ness. An ongoing challenge facing LTE involves cultivating candidates' disciplinary knowledge and facilitating their socialization into professional discourses, yet little research has examined the role of genre awareness in language teacher development. This article explores two aspects of teacher learning in LTE: (1) influences of implicit and explicit genre-oriented practices designed to raise genre awareness and (2) teacher can- didates' perceptions of genre-oriented instruction as a source of professional knowledge and skill. Guided by mixed-methods action research principles, the authors analyze quantitative and qualitative data from 58 teacher candidates in a US-based, graduate-level LTE program. Data collection methods included a questionnaire interrogating students' academic literacy experiences, and focus group discussions. While supporting the goal of developing candidates' pedagogical content knowledge, findings suggest that some methods for cultivating content expertise are perhaps insufficient for promoting critical disciplinary knowledge and appropriating genre expectations. The article discusses the potential benefits of genre-oriented approaches designed to enhance novice teachers' genre awareness and critical literacies. © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Extensive research has been conducted on genre pedagogy and its effectiveness in language teaching (LT) and literacy education in EAP and ESP contexts (Flowerdew, 2015; Hyland & Shaw, 2016). As “frames for social action,” genres furnish learners and teachers with “guiding principles for achieving particular recognized purposes by means of language” (Hyland, 2009, p. 26). Genres and genre pedagogy serve as versatile tools for learning and teaching language and literacy (Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010; Cope & Kalantzis, 1993; Devitt, 2009; Hyland, 2004b, 2007; Johns, 2002; Paltridge, 2001). Nonetheless, the role of genres and genre pedagogy in language teacher education (LTE) remains largely unexamined, perhaps because LTE curricula tend to focus chiefly on cultivating teacher candidates' content knowledge and procedural skills (Hüttner, Smit, & Mehlmauer-Larcher, 2009). The investigation described in this article represents an initial attempt to discern how learning about genres in a graduate LTE program contributes to the development of teacher candidates’ professional knowledge and skill. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: jhedgcoc@miis.edu (J.S. Hedgcock), hlee@miis.edu (H. Lee). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of English for Academic Purposes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2017.01.004 1475-1585/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 26 (2017) 17e28