Nichols, S.M.2025-12-172025-12-172004Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 2004; 8(2)1038-15621839-4728https://hdl.handle.net/1959.8/26881As an educator, I hope to bring about change in learners. As I see changes unfold, I find myself looking for ways to describe what I am witnessing or facilitating. It is hard to avoid the term ‘development’ when speaking in common sense ways about change over time and, in particular, change in learners. Teachers often describe their students as ‘developing’, both in general and in relation to specific domains such as skills, understandings, orientations to subjects, or identities. Outside the classroom, ‘development’ has wide social currency. It is used by parents to compare their own child to others and by commercial interests to promote their ‘educational’ products. In commonsense discourse rarely do we stop to ask each other ‘What do you mean by development?’ In this special issue, a group of Australian researchers invite readers to take a step back from common sense thinking and ask questions about development. Drawing from their considerable experience of ethnographic research in schools and homes, they present analyses which address questions of literacy development, presenting perspectives which may challenge common sense understandings.enCopyright 2004 Australian Literacy Educators' Associationliteracychild developmentJournal article