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This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that investigated home–school communication practices from two school districts in north Florida. Specifically, this study focuses on communication between education professionals and Spanish-speaking parents who were immigrant and migrant farmworkers. In this paper we use the term (im)migrant when referring to families that are both migrant and immigrant to represent the unique characteristics of the group. While prior research has examined communication practices for culturally and linguistically diverse populations, scant research has explored the context with (im)migrant families. Through field notes, home observations, and semistructured interviews, data were collected from parents, school personnel (including teachers, aides, and ESOL district coordinators), and staff from the area Migrant Education Program (MEP). Findings reveal two major themes: differing ideologies of communication, and confounding roles and responsibilities among stu...

This paper describes an ambitious educational program uniting the efforts of Swiss, German, and French business associations, corporations, government agencies, and regional school boards in the Upper Rhine Valley, where economy and culture transcend national borders. The objectives of the program are to promote bilingualism, to teach the young people what factors unite and what factors differentiate their communities, and to optimize conditions for prosperous economic development based on knowledge of geographic, historical, sociocultural, and socioeconomic data. The focus of this paper is the program's textbook, Leben am Oberrhein/ Vivre dans le Rhin Superieur [Living in the Upper Rhine Valley],1 created especially for the communities of the Upper Rhine Valley and the center of the program. The program is multifaceted and innovative. This paper concentrates on Europe (where the program originated) as well as the United States of America (home to the author and the majority of Bilingual Research...

This paper presents an analysis of the literacy practices in a primary-grade English immersion class in California during the first year of implementation of Proposition 227, the initiative that mandated English immersion education for a majority of the state’s linguistically diverse students. The data issue from a yearlong qualitative study of Room 110, a class consisting of 20 native Spanish-speaking children. The author utilizes the notion of hybrid literacy practices to conceptualize the blending of Spanish and English and home and school registers that permeated the class’s reading and writing activities. Findings illustrate the dynamic contexts of development created by these practices and ways that the linguistic hegemony operating within the school eclipsed the practices. A discussion of the findings emphasizes the ambivalence of hybridity as a conceptual tool and as a guide for instructional practice. The paper concludes with three interrelated principles gleaned from the analysis of Roo...

This paper assesses the current state and potential future of bilingual education. It presents an overview of the emergence of bilingual education in various national contexts. Although bilingual education was initially implemented to address political, social, economic, and educational injustices, it instead remains a powerful instrument of mainstreaming minority-language students. It is futile to expect that bilingual education will ever lead to a multicultural society unless a restructuring of the historical, hegemonic relationship between language and culture takes place. In conclusion, the author calls attention to the need to apply the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy in order to improve bilingual education programs. The first section of this paper summarizes the global, historical context of bilingual education, followed by a brief discussion of the principles of different models of formal bilingual education. The article then focuses on the meaning of bilingual education program...

This paper draws from a broader research project and reports on a qualitative case study that investigated instructional practices in grades 3–5 Two-Way Immersion (TWI) classrooms where the partner...

Emergent bilinguals’ engagement and participation with learning is closely connected to the identities they are able to construct in this learning. In this paper, I present a model for understandin...

This position paper observes the impact of Proposition 227, California's “English for the Children” initiative, on the professional development of teachers of English Learners. It draws on information I obtained while working as an evaluator of the California Teacher Institutes (CTIs), a network of institutes aimed to enhance teacher effectiveness in working with linguistically-diverse students. I use the lens of educational anthropology, specifically the idea of cultural dialogue, to frame my interest in the ideological construction of literacy and the production of teacher knowledge in these institutes. I leverage the attention given to academic language in the CTIs as an example of the ideology attendant to literacy discourse in post-227 California, arguing that the seemingly non-controversial themes of needs, access, and language served to normalize the state's assimilationist approach to language policy, planning, and teacher preparation. My hope is that making visible the hidden curriculum of this p...

This qualitative case study examines the literacy practices of an emerging bilingual child in a preschool classroom comprised mostly of recent Mexican immigrant students. It describes how political pressures after the passage of Proposition 203 in Arizona alter the language of instruction in the classroom, even when preschools do not have to conform to this mandate. Data collection included video and audio recordings of students' literacy practices during one school year, field notes, students' work samples, and interviews with students, teachers, and parents. Findings reveal that despite school-sanctioned English literacy practices, emerging bilingual children find ways to draw on hybrid practices and multiple literacies across two languages in student-centered social spaces. The paper concludes with the implications of the study on the education of young immigrant children.

This paper investigates how bilingualism is understood and practiced by adults and students in a dual-language elementary school. In this dual-language program, native English speakers and native Spanish speakers receive language and content instruction in both languages in linguistically integrated settings. I examine the participants' use of “tactics of intersubjectivity” to understand how children use their two languages to ally themselves with and distance themselves from particular people, groups, and linguistic varieties. I ultimately argue that, while the program model is fundamentally based on the idea of the separation of languages and “parallel monolingualism”, it does offer students opportunities to explore linguistic forms and their attendant social meanings.

This paper examines the choices parents have made regarding language of instruction in their children's classrooms, particularly in California after the implementation of Proposition 227. The data for this study are drawn from a 2-year ethnography of eight Latino families from an urban immigrant Latino community. The parents in the study held a high value for bilingual education, particularly in the elementary grades. However, parents' choice for language of instruction was not always a choice but rather determined by lack of access to information and school-community power relations.

Until about 20 years ago, the Navajo language was one of the most resilient American Indian languages in modern U.S. history. Today, at the dawn of the 21st century, that has all changed. Some changes can be attributed to the normal dynamics of cultural transmission that affect language use. Some others, such as the dramatic shift toward English that is occurring—largely due to the agency of public education and mass media—are jeopardizing the survival of the Navajo language. The Navajo language is at a crossroads; it can still be renewed among the growing number of non-speakers so it can be strengthened, or it can continue to decline in its use. On several levels the language appears to remain strong and viable, but on others the telltale signs of impending extinction are becoming apparent. This paper addresses the differences between the normal changes and adaptation of Navajo as a living language and those that are indicative of language loss or other dramatic linguistic shifts that threaten i...

This paper looks at the Chinese heritage language schools in metropolitan Phoenix area and examines what role parents of the students play in the schools. Based on semi-structured interviews, class observations and publication from the local Chinese schools, this study shows that although Chinese schools have benefited from the support of parents in many ways, the excessive dependence on them has contributed to some problems in Chinese schools, including low quality of teaching and inadequately prepared teachers. Recommendations are made to improve the situation by exploring the potential resources unavailable among parents. More connections need to be built with Chinese international students, scholars and faculty in education or Chinese program at local universities.

This study describes and analyzes a teacher-education partnership between two institutions of higher education (IHEs) and three local educational agencies (LEAs) located in a large suburban area. Working collaboratively, these five organizations designed and developed a career-ladder teacher-education program that prepares experienced bilingual paraeducators currently working full time at local schools to become “highly qualified” teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages, as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act (2002). In this paper, we examine the needs and perspectives of an IHE–LEA partnership and their dynamic relationship to address the specific instructional needs of paraeducators.

This study provides information about 19 families that have children enrolled in a bilingual kindergarten class in the Spring Branch Independent School District in Houston, Texas. This paper concerns the parents' understanding of the bilingual program their children attend. The study revealed that a miniscule number of parents are familiar with the practices and policies in place at their children's school and that their expectations for English-language instruction vary widely from what is actually happening in the classroom.

This paper argues that the debate over bilingual education in the United States has been shortchanged, in that many prominent theorists, researchers, and public speakers, both proponents and opponents, have limited their arguments to which language of instruction is best for a child to learn and prosper. As such, there is general disregard for the harsh symbolic and material conditions that language teachers and their students are often forced to live and work within on a daily basis. After deconstructing the ideologies of both sides of the story of language instruction in the United States, the subsequent dialogues with three language teachers focus on the need to recognize and analyze the larger antagonistic economic, racial, and political relations that are reflected in this nation’s schools. Instead of simply dismissing the potential of multilingual programs, as do the advocates of the English-only movement, the public needs to explore what ensures that so many of these progressive undertakin...

Researchers of teacher education programs have lamented the fact that these programs do little to prepare teachers to work with culturally and linguistically diverse children. In this paper we problematize the traditional transmission teacher education approaches to diversity with respect to preparing teachers to teach reading and language arts to culturally and linguistically diverse children. Further, we use Banks' developmental stages of ethnic identity to discuss the potential impact (or lack of impact) of such traditional transmission teacher education on pre-service teachers. Our research then examines the potential impact of a progressive, transactional reading and language arts methods block of courses at an urban professional development school on pre-service teachers' understanding of teaching culturally and linguistically diverse children. Finally, we situate our findings within Banks' developmental stages of ethnic identity.

The Irish Republic has developed and implemented language maintenance and language revival policies since gaining independence from British rule in 1922. At that time, the new Irish government envisioned a bilingual state in which both Irish and English would be used (O Riagain, 1997), and language policies were created to support that goal. Such policies were implemented using schools as the primary vehicle to maintain and revive the Irish language. As a result, two distinct forms of schooling were differentiated for language majority, English-speaking students. The first involves schools in which English is used as the primary medium of instruction, with Irish taught as a compulsory subject in school. Second are immersion schools, known as Gaelscoileanna, in which Irish is used as the medium of instruction apart from the teaching of English. This paper explores students' and parents' attitudes toward bilingualism in Ireland among students who participate in these two different types of schools....

For some Americans, the growing number of heritage language speakers in the United States signals a threat to the cultural fabric of U.S. society. For these individuals, English is the only language that is appropriate for the indoctrination of youth into our nation's social order. Recent events in the United States' political landscape, such as the passage of California's Proposition 227 and Arizona's Proposition 203, attest to the notion that schools remain one of the most ardent battlegrounds for the English language policy debate. Nonetheless, school-based language policy decisions have been made too hastily, often relying on rash assessments of public opinion or personal biases. What school language policymakers have failed to consider are the potential long-term consequences to the social, academic, or linguistic development of heritage language speakers these policies affect. In the present paper, several accounts of Spanish speakers whose heritage language clashed on school grounds are pr...

Two-way bilingual programs have the potential to promote bilingualism, biliteracy, and pluralism in minority and majority group students who study together in two languages. This paper examines how a focal group of Mexican-background middle school students enrolled in a two-way maintenance bilingual program learned to value English over Spanish at school. Evidence supporting students’ choice of English over their native language came from close analysis of interactional patterns with peers and teachers in classes and informal settings and from students’ explanations of their lived school experiences in interviews over a three year period during middle school. Elements of the hidden curriculum, instructional practices, and assessment policy served to devalue students’ native linguistic cultural capital compelling them to use English in the classroom and within peer culture.

This paper recounts the journey taken by a young Chinese-Canadian artist and her high school art teacher as they begin to negotiate who they are in a city and a school that has recently seen the arrival of a large number of immigrants from Hong Kong. Analyzing the student’s art work as a pedagogical project that not only promotes the positive development of self-identities but that also challenges anti-immigrant ideas that structure relationships both inside and outside the school, I re-tell the story of how a group of students and their teacher use art to work across linguistic differences and resist linguistic discrimination.

This paper examines the creation of the Oakwood Family Education Center, a community-based education center created using the principles of liberation theology as the change strategy to attempt to improve the educational achievement of Hispanic students through community involvement and empowerment. Results from interviews with 16 parents show that lay leadership was activated at the center and that parents believe their children have benefitted academically by having the opportunity to get assistance with homework in a nurturing, community-based environment. Results suggest that Hispanic parents are willing to become active participants in educational improvements, provided that appropriate opportunities are created.

Changes in politics, the economy, demographics, and local leadership all led to the establishment of the Potter Thomas Bilingual School in Philadelphia in 1969. This paper examines the school’s history and how it has created, implemented, and sustained various language policies that have constituted its bilingual program over the last 30 years. Using Kaplan and Baldauf’s (1997) model, I will identify how Potter Thomas reconfigured its language-in-education policies to challenge “deficit” discourse and promote “resource” discourse (Ruiz, 1984) toward language diversity and speakers of languages other than English. I conclude with present and future challenges to Potter Thomas’ bilingual education program, including a critique of the role Title VII funding has played in the program’s development.

This paper overviews the process of school restructuring in the small Alaskan village of Manokotak. The restructuring involved moving from an “English Submersion” program to a Yup'ik First Language transitional (Yup'ik Immersion) program with an English as a Second Language component. The restructuring focused on the vitalization of the community language and culture through the transformation of instructional practices and the use of native language instruction. As the district moved toward competency based instruction, parallel Yup'ik competencies were created. Challenges were encountered in materials and curriculum development, scheduling, available funds, top-down decision making and community participation. Formal and informal assessment results are promising for both the students and the school. Community decision making and on-going collaboration with the school district continues to be the crux of the success and perpetuation of this program.

Bilingual education remains a controversial topic of discussion in the United States locally and nationally. Issues of educational benefits need to be kept separate from political issues; both must be informed by understanding of the larger society. In this paper I describe different possible bilingual education models and comment on the educational costs and benefits associated with each.

Based on research among the Tohono O’odham of southern Arizona, this paper first describes spoken O’odham and oral narrative, relating this to the development of O’odham children’s English literacy. Oral tradition constitutes one aspect of a “literacy continuum” grounded in familial and community relationships. “School literacy” often constitutes an opposite end of that continuum; historically this form of literacy has remained isolated from and in conflict with literacy rooted in the family/community context. The discussion here shows how the two types of literacy are connected in children’s writing, and provides recommendations for educators to tap indigenous students’ linguistic and cultural resources to promote literacy in a second language.

The past two-and-a-half decades have witnessed tremendous change in both the content and the context of American Indian education. Content refers to curriculum, pedagogy and the micro processes that occur within Indian classrooms, schools and communities. Context refers to the larger institutional framework in which those processes operate. Change at both levels has resulted from a dynamic interplay between federal language policy on the one hand, and initiatives generated at the level of Indian schools and communities on the other. Integrating an historical analysis of federal language policy with comparative ethnographic data from several well-documented Indian bilingual programs in the southwestern U.S., this paper examines that interplay and its implications for local control over Indian education.

Multicultural education is still one of the most controversial and misunderstood concepts, because it means different things to different peoples. This paper is intended to explore the meaning and significance of multicultural education in a global context on the basis of recent cross-cultural research in anthropology.