Bedeker Michelle

Michelle Bedeker brings extensive experience across primary, secondary, adult, and higher education contexts. Michelle holds a PhD in Language and Literacy Studies, a Master’s Degree in Language Education and Applied Linguistics, a Bachelor of Education (Postgraduate) in Curriculum, Pedagogy, and School Leadership, and a Bachelor of Education (undergraduate) from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Michelle challenges social inequity in education by utilising critical postcolonial theory, critical applied linguistics and interdisciplinarity to address the complexities of local context and culture, especially as they intersect with Western policy reforms that often marginalise local knowledge. She completed a funded research project on the Language of Science, focusing on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) teachers in Kazakhstan. Her research appears in prestigious Q1 journals, including Language, Curriculum and Culture, Pedagogy, Curriculum and Society, British Review of Education, and the Journal of English for Academic Purposes. In her recent role, she employed interdisciplinary, postcolonial, and literacy frameworks to reimagine STEM education, highlighting the importance of multilinguality, language, and literacy in STEM teaching. She advocated for integrating language, literacies, and STEM disciplines to empower future teachers to implement STEM-specific methods, promote inquiry-based learning, and effectively use educational technologies to tackle contemporary classroom challenges.

1. Bedeker, M., Makoelle, T., & Syed, M. (Eds.) (2025). Exploring Academic Writing as Social Practice: Institutional Goals, Complexities and Possibilities in Central Asia. Palgrave McMillan.
2. Bedeker, M. & Kerimkulova, S. (2025). From the Periphery to the Centre? Creating a Community of Practice to Scaffold Graduate Students' Scholarly Voices and Identities. In M. Bedeker, T. Makoelle, & M. Syed (Eds.). Exploring Academic Writing as Social Practice: Institutional Goals, Complexities and Possibilities in Central Asia. Palgrave McMillan.
3. Zarykbay, S. & Bedeker, M. (2025). I steal time from my actual courses to teach academic stuff: Institutional AW Practices. In M. Bedeker, T. Makoelle, & M. Syed (Eds.). Exploring Academic Writing as Social Practice: Institutional Goals, Complexities and Possibilities in Central Asia. Palgrave McMillan.
4. Zolasbekova, Z, & Bedeker, M (2025). “I only encountered Academic writing when I started to prepare for my IELTS exam”. Graduate students’ threshold crossing into academic writing. In M. Bedeker, T. Makoelle, & M. Syed (Eds.). Exploring Academic Writing as Social Practice: Institutional Goals, Complexities and Possibilities in Central Asia. Palgrave McMillan.
5. Zakirova, Z. & Bedeker, M. (2025). AI as the emergence of new academic writing literacies: Kazakhstani student Perspectives on its affordances and challenges. In M. Bedeker, T. Makoelle, & M. Syed (Eds.). Exploring Academic Writing as Social Practice: Institutional Goals, Complexities and Possibilities in Central Asia. Palgrave McMillan.
6. Apay, B. & Bedeker, M. (2025). AI as New Literacy Practice: Reimagining University Education, Critical thinking and academic writing in Kazakhstan. In M. Bedeker, T. Makoelle, & M. Syed (Eds.). Exploring Academic Writing as Social Practice: Institutional Goals, Complexities and Possibilities in Central Asia. Palgrave McMillan.
7. Sadykova, A., Bedeker. M. & Tatyyeva, Z. (2025). The Obvious, but the Overlooked: Western Culture in English Academic Texts. In J. Tussey & L. Haas (Eds). Supporting Cultural and Linguistic Differences through Literacy Education. IGI Global.
8. Hwami, M. & Bedeker, M. (2025). Imagining representation and recognition of the ‘Other’ in international higher Education (IHE): Towards epistemic Justice. In the International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Social (In)Justice: A Critical Perspective, Springer.
9. Bedeker, M. & Kerimkulova, S. (2024). "My English seems not enough": Moving from Language Deficit Views to Kazakhstani Biology Teachers' Funds of Knowledge. Pedagogy, Culture, and Society.
10. Hwami, M. & Bedeker, M. (2024). Social stratifying Kazakhstan: A Bourdieusian social Reproduction Analysis of Higher education internationalisation. British Review of Education.
11. Bedeker, M. & Kerimkulova, S. (2024). "I notice I'm getting more involved, interested, and excited about my future topic." Exploring Action Research to move from research steps to scholarly thinking. Journal of English for Academic Purposes.
12. Zarykbay, S. & Bedeker, M. (2024). "No one has ever instructed us how to do this": Graduate Students Threshold Crossing into Academic Writing at two EMI universities in Kazakhstan. In M. Hwami & T. Makoelle (Eds.), Internationalisation of Higher Education in Kazakhstan. Cambridge Scholars Publication.
13. Bedeker, M., Ospanbek, A., Simons, M., Zhalgaspayev, M. & Yessenbekova, A. (2023). "I can easily switch to the Kazakh language, also to the Russian language": Reimagining Kazakhstani CLIL implementation as a third space. Language, Culture, and Curriculum.
14. Bedeker, M. (2023). COVID-19 resulted in classrooms without walls: What can pedagogical and content knowledge (PCK) offer? Journal of Educators Online (Special Issue, March 2023).
15. Bedeker, M., & Gaye, A. (2023). Threshold crossing into an academic disciplinary voice in the UAE. In K. Jiang, J. Don & L. Buckingham (Eds.), EAP and growing interdisciplinary research: discourse, literacy, and pedagogy. Routledge.
16. Bedeker, M. (2023). L2 writing in the National Senior Certificate exam: A critical study of writing assessment in South Africa. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies.
17. Bedeker, M., & Gaye, A. (2022). "How many words must we have?" Threshold crossing into an academic Disciplinary voice in the UAE. International Journal of English for Specific Purposes.
18. Kerfoot, C. & Van Heerden (Bedeker), M. (2017). Don't bother; he cannot write. Language and Education. In C. Kerfoot & A. Simon-Vandenbergen (Eds.), Language in epistemic access: Mobilising multilingualism and literacy development for more equitable education in South Africa. Taylor Francis.
19. Van Heerden (Bedeker), M. (2016). Exploring Habitus and Writer Identities: An Ethnographic study of Writer Identity Construction in the FET Phase at two Schools in the Western Cape. Multilingual dislocations: Special Issue Multilingual Margins, 2 (2).
20. Kerfoot, C. & Van Heerden (Bedeker), M. (2015). Don't bother; he can write. Language and Education, 29(3), 235–255.
21. Van Heerden (Bedeker), M. (2015). Exploring Habitus and Writer Identities: An Ethnographic Study of Writer Identity Construction in the FET Phase at Two Schools in the Western Cape, Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. University of the Western Cape: South Africa.
22. Van Heerden (Bedeker), M. (2008). Testing the waters: Exploring genres in the English Additional Language classroom in a multilingual Cape Flats primary school, Master's Thesis. University of the Western Cape: South Africa.

Aypay, B. & Bedeker, M. (2024). EMI University Students’ Experiences with Using ChatGPT for Language and Literacy Practices: A Qualitative Study, Technology for Second Language Learning Conference (TSLL), Iowa State University, USA.