Bassett, MarkMacnaught, Lucy2024-05-202024-05-202024-05-20Teaching in Higher Education, ISSN: 1356-2517 (Print); 1470-1294 (Online), Taylor and Francis Group. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2024.23542801356-25171470-1294http://hdl.handle.net/10292/17565This systematic literature review identifies evidence used to justify embedded approaches to academic literacy development. This inquiry is of direct relevance to widening participation in higher education and persistent inequity with completion rates for linguistically and culturally diverse student groups. Using the PRISMA-P checklist, 20 studies were included. Analysis focused on their research designs, types of evidence presented, pedagogic practices implemented, and journal choice. Findings show that research designs often involved questionnaire, interview, and focus group data to generate insights about student and staff perceptions. Descriptions of pedagogic practices were brief and not always related to claims about impact, and publishing targeted a variety of disciplines. These findings highlight the need for research teams with discipline knowledge and literacy knowledge so that evidence about the impacts of embedded approaches on academic performance are included, as well as complementary publications that detail the pedagogic practices contributing to change in academic performance.© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/widening participationacademic literacy developmentinterdisciplinary collaborationwriting across the disciplinesEnglish for Academic Purposesteaching interventions1301 Education Systems1303 Specialist Studies in EducationEducation3903 Education systems3904 Specialist studies in educationJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1080/13562517.2024.2354280