Book reviews

DIGITAL SENSATIONS: SPACE, IDENTITY, AND EMBODIMENT IN VIRTUAL REALITY. By Ken Hillis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999; pp. xi + 271. $47.95 cloth; $18.95 paper.

THOMAS KUHN: A PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY FOR OUR TIMES. By Steve Fuller. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2000; pp. xvii + 472.

PROMETHEUS WIRED: THE HOPE FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE AGE OF NETWORK TECHNOLOGY. By Darin Barney. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000; pp. 340. $29.00.

DEWEY ON DEMOCRACY. By William R. Caspary. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000; pp. 256. $39.95.

THE ORGANIZING PROPERTY OF COMMUNICATION. By François Cooren. Philadelphia and Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000; pp. 272. $50.00.

CRAFTING SOCIETY: ETHNICITY, CLASS, AND COMMUNICATION THEORY. By Donald G. Ellis. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1999; pp. xvi + 229. $49.95.

PROGAY/ANTIGAY: THE RHETORICAL WAR OVER SEXUALITY. Ralph R. Smith and Russel R. Windes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 2000; pp. xxiv + 240.

THEORIES OF CULTURE IN POSTMODERN TIMES. By Marvin Harris. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1999; pp. 224. Cloth $62.00; Paper $22.95.

PRESIDENTIAL CRISIS RHETORIC AND THE PRESS IN THE POST‐COLD WAR WORLD. By Jim A. Kuypers. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997; pp. xi + 242.     

Literature and the Particularities of Dialogue

Index to the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Volumes I to XL, 1915–1954. Prepared under the auspices of the Speech Association of America. Compiled by Giles Wilkeson Gray. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company, 1956; pp. ix+338. $5.00.     

Media's Impact on Educational Policies and Practices: Political Spectacle and Social Control

Cyber and home school charter schools have silently become a prominent part of the charter school movement. These alternative school models differ from conventional schools by relying on parents and the Internet to deliver much of their curriculum and instruction while minimizing the use of personnel and physical facilities. This article examines how recent developments in California and Pennsylvania have resulted in public scrutiny of cyber and home school charters and led to considerable debate and demands for public accountability. Our findings outline the need to modify regulatory frameworks to accommodate cyber and home school charters, the consideration of the differing financial allocations for schools that operate with reduced personnel and facilities, and the division of financial responsibility between state and local educational agencies.     

Speaking of books

Changing Aims in Religious Education. Edwin Cox. New York: Humanities Press, 1967. 102 pp. $3.50.

Contemporary Mathematics for Elementary Teachers. Howard F. Fehr and Thomas J. Hill. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1966. 394 pp. $7.95.

Creative Encounters in the Classroom: Teaching and Learning Through Discovery. Bryon G. Massialas and Jack Zevin. New York: John Wiley &; Sons, Inc., 1967. 274 pp. $3.50.

Gods and Rituals: Readings in Religious Beliefs and Practices. John Middleton, New York: The Natural History Press, 1967. 468 pp. $6.95.

Language and Learning. Janet A. Emig, James T. Fleming, and Helen M. Popp, editors. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1966. 301 pp. $3.50.

Schools of Europe. Richard Emerson Werstler. Adrian, Michigan: Swenk‐Tuttle Press, 1967. 203 pp. $10.00.

Teaching Adults to Read. Wayne Otto and David Ford. Boston: Houghton‐Mifflin Company, 1967. 176 pp. $3.95.

What Is a Teacher? Henry W. Simon. New York: Collier Books, 1966. 96 pp. $.95.

Paul A. Witty, editor. The Educationally Retarded and Disadvan‐taged The Sixty‐Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part 1. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967. 384 pp.

Report of the Harvard Committee. The Graduate Study of Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966. 125 pp. $2.75.     

Fostering meaning: fostering community

This article acknowledges the value of using communities of practice as a perspective to illuminate learning and teaching in higher education but argues that preceding work has given insufficient attention to: the particular kinds of trajectories, commitments and intentions displayed by the participants in undergraduate courses; the knowledge practices and distinctive stances in relation to knowledge around which these ‘communities’ centre and the conceptualisation of the nature of communication and the particular challenges for the creation of meaning within higher education learning communities. It addresses these gaps by closely examining these matters and bringing to the fore the distinctiveness of learning communities in higher education. Based on this analysis it argues that effective teaching requires the creation of transitional spaces and hybrid discourses that allow for movement and change, and characterises learning communities in higher education as ‘spaces of the in-between’.