This volume brings together research carried out in a variety of geographic and linguistic contexts including Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States and explores efforts to incorporate linguistic diversity into education and to "harness" this diversity for learners' benefit. It challenges the largely…

This book provides teachers with information about the educational needs of Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese-American children in U.S. public schools. For each group, there are two chapters: one sociocultural and one linguistic. Each documents the unique characteristics of each ethnic group and provides…

Within the last several years, researchers working with linguistic minority children have focused increasingly on the development of the types of language proficiencies that are required to perform successfully in academic contexts. Most practitioners and researchers agree that, in order to succeed in schools, such learners must be given the…

This book presents affirmative strategies to rid schools of discrimination. Many of these strategies were developed as a result of research in four public high schools with large percentages of ethnic and language minority students in the deep south. The study, which consisted of 48 30-90 minute interviews, suggested that there is wide student…

A discussion of school partnerships with linguistic minority communities (1) contextualizes and defines such partnerships, (2) notes the typical obstacles that prevent educators and communities from developing partnerships successfully, (3) highlights promising evolving practices associated with effective partnerships, (4) recommends future…

Twenty strategies are presented for enhancing the involvement of parents from diverse backgrounds, including: exploring parents' expectations, learning about the family's culture, providing communication in many forms, making use of casual contacts with parents, planning different times for conferences, involving interpreters, and linking…

This article presents recommendations to increase family involvement among culturally/linguistically diverse families of children with disabilities. Recommendations include using different communication approaches, providing alternative meeting sites, providing information and training to parents, and understanding family priorities, needs, and…

This volume in NCSET's Essential Tools series summarizes current research about transition issues and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) youth with disabilities. It offers information on how transition personnel can effectively support these youth by building on their strengths and enhancing natural supports available within their…

This article discusses the various cultural interpretations of severe disabilities and the role of enculturation in determining family expectations and participation within the special education system. Research-based techniques and ideas are presented to facilitate increased competence with families in which English is not the first language.…

This regional dossier aims to provide concise, descriptive information and basic educational statistics about minority language education in a specific region of the European Union--Northern Ireland. Details are provided about the features of the educational system, recent educational policies, divisions of responsibilities, main actors, legal…

An ongoing four-year ethnographic study of two cohorts of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners enrolled in mainstream Canadian primary school classrooms is described. The two cohorts are: (1) a group of six children observed from the beginning of kindergarten through the end of grade 2, and (2) five children observed from early kindergarten…

This book examines the impact of cultural and linguistic diversity on the learning of children with disabilities and giftedness, and explores multicultural education and the ways that multicultural perspectives can be taught to children with disabilities. Five major sections discuss: the foundations of multicultural education, multicultural…

This book provides information on the most recent groups of refugee children in British schools, including children from Albania, Eastern European Roma, the former Soviet Union, Iraq, Kurdistan, Algeria, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Kenya, Nigeria, and many other countries. Because educational provisions for students from refugee communities have…

This guide is targeted to teachers of intermediate or advanced English as a Second Language (ESL). It provides three 1-hour lesson plans on the topic of the importance of participation in the 2000 U.S. census. The paper asserts that it is critical for minorities who have historically been undercounted and under-represented in the U.S. Congress to…

This training package assists educators in improving the delivery of services to culturally and linguistically diverse exceptional (CLDE) students at the classroom level. It is based on the necessity of addressing multiple systems (e.g., the child, the family, and the school), with emphasis on mildly disabled over other levels of disability and on…