directly with their readers, making their purposesclear and creating spaces where readers can decideon how they wish to enter into dialogue with thetext. For teachers who wish to research their ownclassrooms and the literacy practices of those theyteach, there is plenty here to get them started.What is particularly welcome about the book is

the way in which it draws attention to NewLiteracy Studies in a way that is likely to have animpact on teachers’ thinking. The vignettes whichthread through the text portray a wide range ofliteracy practices in different spaces, privileging thevoices of students and teachers alongside those oftheorists. Central to the argument of the book isthe way in which literacy is bound up with identity.Who we are and who we are allowed to be isshaped in part by the ways we choose to useliteracy and the ways in which others expect us touse it. The view of literacy presented here is a richone. It takes into account the full range of literacypractices with which a learner might engage andcelebrates the notion of multiple literacies and theinterplay between inside and outside school,between individual and communities, and betweenthe local and the global. It draws attention to therich mix of visual and language literacies that weexperience though technological change, popula-tion movement, and the media. In recognising theways in which students engage with cultures, withlanguage and with texts, the authors emphasise the

extent and complexity of young learners’ knowl-edge and skills which might be neglected in school.By ignoring the ways in which students read andconstruct multimodal texts for their own purposes,learning in schools is impoverished. Where stu-dents are given the opportunity to draw on alltheir experiences, a richer mix ensues.

In acknowledging the power and significance ofshaping identity through literacy practices, theauthors of this book reclaim what is exciting aboutthis subject for both teachers and learners. The actof becoming, the search for identity throughreading and creating texts requires teachers andlearners to work together in dynamic ways, andthe outcome of such working relationships is oftenunexpected and powerful. For a teacher, workingin this way restores to them the intellectual andemotional challenges that make teaching such anexciting job. They may seek to learn more aboutthe texts and modes of communication in whichstudents are engaged, seek to find ways ofengaging students critically with such texts, andseek a better understanding of what is importantfor every student they teach.

Jenifer SmithSchool of Education and Lifelong Learning,

University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

E-mail address: jeni.smith@uea.ac.uk

doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2005.07.011

Kym Fraser (Ed.), Education Development and Leader-

ship in Higher Education.: Developing an Effective

Institutional Strategy, RoutledgeFalmer, Abingdon,

Oxon, ISBN 0415349699 (Paperback), 2005.

This book, in the series published by Routle-dgeFalmer in association with the UK StaffEducation and Development Association (SEDA),is edited by Kym Fraser, now of the University ofWarwick and, like most of the contributors,experienced also in the Australian system. Eigh-teen other titles in the series are listed; the Series

Editor is James Wisdom. The back cover blurbclaims experience worldwide. In fact, the experi-ence is anchored strongly and, all but exclusively,in approaches and development traditions to dowith teaching and learning of Australia and theUK. In these countries, the subject is a growingbusiness.

Within this higher education tradition, Australiahas tended to lead in formalising staff, andespecially teaching–learning (T/L), development.Most Australian universities created special unitsfor staff development in T/L several decades back.

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Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 26 (2006) 224–242240

An imaginative plethora of titles spawned acro-nyms like ORAM when I worked at the AustralianNational University (ANU) and the University ofQueensland’s cuddly TEDI, which like ANU alsofeatures here.

The doyenne of the movement, Barbara Falk,now in her nineties, still works at the University ofMelbourne where the first such unit was set up.More recently, the UK has strengthened provisionat the institutional level, supported by SEDA.There is also more purposeful official supportnationally, with the recent creation of a HigherEducation Academy (HEA), built onto earlierarrangements. Australia has a National Instituteof Teaching and Learning. Paul Ramsden, aleading player in this arena in Australia, movedto England to head up HEA, underscoring theextent of contact, exchange and reciprocal learningbetween these two countries, which this book alsoreflects.

This context is important. A study of T/Ldevelopment on continental Europe would readdifferently. While the volume makes clear that it ismainly about T/L development rather than thewider organisation development and change with-in which it is located, the traditions of scholarship,management and leadership in the two systems areimportant to understanding the story. KymFraser’s brief introduction and Peter Ling’s open-ing chapter well set the context for the case studiesand discussions that follow.

These vary somewhat in style and focus.Chapter 8 and the concluding Chapter 11, bothco-contributed by the Editor, sit uneasily with therest. They are detailed reports of empiricalresearch rather than the more integrative andreflective approach of other chapters. Together thefull range of contributions provide a good sense ofhow teaching/learning is perceived and supportedin different universities, with more than a hint oforthodoxies to do with specialised central units,and of—or versus—freedom for academic organi-sational units (AOUs). The resolution, as often insuch matters, is no doubt a matter of best balanceand equilibrium to fit the purpose of the particularunique institution.

The volume can be read at a level beyond thestudies themselves, as a study in professional

formation and a quest for standing that iscommon to emerging professional groups andspecialists within as well as outside higher educa-tion. The field of continuing education/lifelonglearning/community engagement which I inhabitdisplays similar characteristics. Like the looselyrelated tribe of T/L practitioners, it also claimsspecial importance as a change agent to the wholeinstitution, a claim sometimes generously ac-knowledged, at other times and places rejectedwith disdain.Not surprisingly the volume has an occasional

whiff of special pleading. Many of the studies are,however, refreshingly open, reflective and in thissense self-critical. Some walk a delicate pathwaybetween professional reflectiveness and what mightbe seen as institutional disloyalty; none more sothat several from my own RMIT University whichhas suffered vortex-like roller–coaster turbulence,overdosing on restructuring and other kinds ofchange, throughout the period of these studies.Apropos the centre-versus-AOU dialectic, it isinstructive that Alex Radloff, who writes hereabout an AOU (Faculty) approach, has also beena key and charismatic figure in centrally initiatedand animated T/L development at RMIT. Shenotes that the Faculty which she describes hassince been disbanded. Even as she writes (and stillnow as I review), it remains to be determinedwhich functions, including T/L development,move ‘up’ to ‘Portfolio’ (super-faculty) level, andwhich down to the basic AOU School level. Manyof these studies read like dispatches from the frontin a fast-moving zone of engagement.Chapter 10 calls attention to the feminised

character of this T/L community, suggesting (p.178) that this may be because the work calls formulti-tasking, networking and communicationskills, seen as stereotypically feminine attributes.Certainly, the contributors to this book fit thepattern: 11 of the 16 are women, and the samenumber write from an Australian base of experi-ence. Despite Australia’s machismo image, genderequity has been taken more seriously here than inmost countries outside Scandinavia. A less rosyinterpretation is that, as in other fields of educa-tion, teaching and human services, feminisationgoes with low or falling status.

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Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 26 (2006) 224–242 241

There is something in this volume for anyoneinterested in the theory and practice of enhancingthe quality of teaching and learning, as well as inwider issues about the (as we now say strategic)management of higher education, and aboutprocesses of leadership, development and admin-istration. For me the more stimulating chaptersare those that visit a wider conceptual terrain,reflecting on the emerging experience of T/Ldevelopment from outside as well as from within.I was neither surprised nor convinced by the

final chapter, which reports widespread resistance

to what it calls the professionalisation of universityteaching, before calling for mandatory develop-ment (meaning accredited training) of academicstaff as teachers. A natural plea, but it is seems anon sequitur if freely chosen professional commit-ment is valued, and there is still stiff resistance. Butthen they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Chris DukeNIACE, Leicester, UK1

RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia2

E-mail address: chris.duke@rmit.edu.au

doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2005.10.002

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1Director, Higher Education.2Professor of Regional Partnerships and Learning.

Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 26 (2006) 224–242242