This study aimed at investigating the effect of teaching writing skills on ideology transfer in academic writings of EFL students. To this end, a sequential mixed methods design was used. The participants of the study consisted of 80 male and female IELTS candidates selected based on some criteria such as proficiency level, age, and education background. The instruments of the study included a sample Mock Writing Task 2 and a sample IELTS Writing Task 2, in the pre-test and post-test respectively. Learners’ essays produced during these stages were compared and analyzed based on Fairclough’s (2001) model of critical discourse analysis which suggests three levels: description, interpretation, and explanation. To analyze the data, qualitative and quantitative content analysis methods using thematic analysis were applied during which discursive strategies used by the candidates were identified, examined, and coded, and the frequency and percentage of them were calculated. After the data analysis, the following themes were identified in the participants’ writings, as representing ideology transfer: tendency towards representation of social, cultural, and gender identity, use of active voices, use of first-person pronouns, social views, author visibility, ideology-laden concepts, and idea development. Moreover, there were significant changes in the post-test writings of the participants compared to their pre-test writings in terms of the number of discursive strategies used to express ideology. This shows that teaching writing skills can have a significant effect on EFL learners’ ability to transfer their ideology in academic writings. The findings can have some implications for EFL learners, teachers, curriculum planners, and researchers regarding how to teach and learn writing.
