This book wrestles with complex issues surrounding the concept of literacy under contemporary conditions. Naz Rassool considers in depth how information and communication technologies require us to think in new ways about literacy and the purposes it serves in our social, cultural, and economic lives, as well as the kinds of values associated with being literate in the information age. While I think the book has some laudable strengths, it poses some serious concerns for me.
So far as the book's strengths are concerned, Rassool successfully pursues a robust integrated framework for a sociocultural view of literacy, she evaluates some historically important views and definitions of literacy, and she relates these discussions in useful ways to language and literacy policy. Chapters 3 ยฑ5 advance a strong analysis and critique of discourses of literacy and development that have informed mass literacy initiatives since the 1960s, again with useful reference to policy implications. Furthermore, the argument reviews an extensive literature pertaining to literacy, social development programs, the growth of new technologies and their impact on text, work, and politics. For these reasons, literacy researchers will find the book helpful.
At the same time, three aspects of the argument trouble me. First, in light of the book's actual argument, I find the emphasis on sustainable development in the title misleading. Second, after several readings, I remain unsure where Rassool finally stands with respect to whether or not genuine historical and cultural alternatives exist to being incorporated into the related agendas of globalization and the information society. Third, I think the argument contains some strong, if not contradictory, tensions.
For me, the key role of ``sustainable development'' in the title does not materialize in the argument. I expected a discussion that would wrestle with competing concepts and discourses of sustainable development (since the ideal is strongly contested), one that would treat the theme of sustainable development systematically and substantially. In contrast, sustainable development does not