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Article published In: Literacies: Tertiary contexts:
Compiled and edited by Zosia Golebiowski
[Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 25:2] 2002
► pp. 73–99

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Cultures of learning

Critical reading in the social and applied sciences

 | Curtin University of Technology
 | Curtin University of Technology
Published online: 1 January 2002
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https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.25.2.07kir
Abstract
Australian university students are characterised in some quarters, and by employer groups especially, as lacking a high facility with literacy skills. But what literacy skills do students actually need for tertiary study in Australia today? What expectations do students and teachers have about learning the particular literacy skills needed to acquire, evaluate and convey information in their discipline? And to what extent are traditional notions of the culture of learning in Australian universities as ‘critically active’ reflected in practice? This paper compares course requirements and student reading practices in a selection of units in Business, Engineering, Health Science and Social Science and the findings challenge prevailing ideas of what constitutes ‘tertiary literacy’ in Australian universities.
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