Growth and Structure of Distance Education, Börje Holmberg, Beckenham, Kent: Croom, 1986

Over the last twenty years, Börje Holmberg, director of the Institute of Research into Distance Education at the FernUniversität in Hagen, West Germany, has published a stream of articles and books on a wide variety of aspects of distance education. Indeed, the bibliography of this small volume includes nineteen works which Holmberg has written or edited either alone or in collaboration with others. These range from bibliographies and surveys to research and theoretical studies. His lengthening list of publications on distance education has built Holmberg a substantial and deserved reputation as one of the world's leading researchers and theorists in the field. Regrettably, this new book will not enhance that reputation.

In his preface, Holmberg states firmly that "evolution, continuity and development are the themes of this book. The rationale, principles and practice of distance education since its inception as an organized activity are looked into." The attempt to do all of these things in 145 pages of text leads to none of them being dealt with fully or satisfactorily and contributes little or nothing to the continuing study of distance education. Some examples will illustrate the point.

The first chapter, "The Concept of Distance Education," is little more than a restatement of Holmberg's earlier theory of "organized distance study as a mediated form of guided didactic conversation" (p. 4). The second chapter on "Pioneering Work in Distance Education" brings together materials not hitherto included in a single work, but it is also little more than a collection of long excerpts from the work of others linked by short sections of commentary. Chapter 3, "The Rationale and Basic Characteristics of Early Distance Education," follows a similar pattern.

Two of the chapters, "Pervasive Themes" and "A Study of Practices in the 1980s," provide an interesting and useful treatment of some of the major issues and controversies facing distance educators and a summary of the comparative study of distance education in the early 1980s published by Holmberg's institute. They are followed by a chapter on the development of a theory of distance education which, although afflicted by the author's tendency to provide lengthy quotations from, rather than summaries of, the works of others, provides interesting insights. But they are followed by two concluding chapters. The first, on the discipline of distance education, provides yet another argument for the establishment and growth of a separate discipline; Holmberg's rather flimsy assumption is that the existence of university teaching and research programmes constitutes grounds for recognition as a discrete discipline. The second, "The State of Distance Education Today," is set between the two extraordinary banalities: firstly, that "a reasonable summary" of the picture given in the book is that "distance education today is the product of a continuous development that started well over a century ago" (p. 141); and secondly that "it is difficult to imagine a future in which distance education will be de trop" (p. 145).

Surely, if practitioners and theorists of distance education wish to persuade the rest of the academic profession that it is an area worthy of serious and continuing study, we have to do better than this. Holmberg is, of course, correct in maintaining that the increased attention being paid to distance education in university curricula and research is evidence of its growing significance. Whether it also means that distance education is - or ought to be - a separate discipline seems largely irrelevant. What is important is to try to answer carefully and systematically some important issues, such as those raised by John Sparkes in his article, "On Defining a Discipline of Distance Education" (Distance Education, 4(2)(1983), 179–86) or by Jocelyn Calvert in "Research in Canadian Distance Education" (Ian Mugridge & David Kaufman (Eds.) (1986) Distance Education in Canada. London, pp. 94–110). Such articles and a number of studies (such as the FernUniversität project, to which one of the chapters in this book is devoted) are helping to move the study of distance education forward in new and significant directions, answering questions of growing importance as distance education takes a more central place on the educational scene. This place is now largely unchallenged - thanks in part to the work of Börje Holmberg and others - but he does neither himself nor the rest of us any service by continuing, as he does in large part in this book, to restate old issues and refight old wars.