This work concerns the issues that comprise the broad field of literacy education, for example, discourses about childhood, socio-economic order and political and ideological contingencies. Analyses of literacy education from a number of different countries and cultures are included.

Introduction - explanations of the current international literacy crises, A.R. Welch and P. Freebody; literacy strategies - a view from the International Literacy Year Secretatiat of UNESCO, L.J. Limage; the pen and the sword - literacy, education and the revolution of Kurdistan, A. Hassampour; aboriginal education in Northern Australia - a case study of literacy policies and practices, C. Walton; rights and expectations in an Age of Debt Crisis - literacy and integral human development in Papua New Guinea, N. Ahai and N. Faraclas; literacy and primary education in India, K. Kumar; adult literacy in Nicaragua 1979-90, C. Lankshear; literacy and the dynamics of language planning - the dynamics of Singapore, A. Kwan-Terry and J. Kwan-Terry; the troubled text - history and language in American university writing programmes, J. Collins; workplace literacy in Australia - competing agendas, P. O'Connor; individualisation and domestication in current literacy debates in Australia, P. Freebody and A.R. Welch.