About one-third of children under age 8 in the United States have at least one parent who speaks a language other than English at home. And as of 2016, 9.6 percent of all U.S. public school students were identified as English language learners. It is obvious that the American student population is becoming increasingly multilingual. This trend is…

As trans studies becomes more deeply institutionalized as a field and trans visibility spikes in popular culture, more students come into women's and gender studies (WGS) classrooms identifying as trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary, and they hope that classrooms will be responsive to their experiences. At minimum, this requires that WGS instructors…

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, cognitive scientist, logician, historian, political critic and activist. Chomsky is an Institute Professor and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT where he has worked for over fifty years. Chomsky has been described as the father of modern linguistics and a major…

Across Europe we can observe the reinforcement of monolingual education policies, despite increasing multilingualism. Recent research has shown that the emphasis is on language proficiency in the socially dominant language. This is viewed as the key to educational success. The use of other languages or linguistic repertoires is not valued in…

Theories of human development and learning provide an essential framework in which to understand the mechanisms involved in the process of formal instruction as a specific form of teaching and learning in the school setting. The sociocultural theory of development, founded on the works of Lev Vygotsky, espouses the view that social interaction…

A sociocultural view of learning proposes that learning involves becoming enculturated into a community of practice. A step along the way is learning to use the specialized language of such a community, as language is a crucial tool that regulates participation, mediates cognition and plays a central role in the development of thought.…

The U.S. National Education Goals were enacted into federal law in 1994 as the "Goals 2000: Educate America Act." The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas at Austin is addressing the first of these goals, which states that by the year 2000 all children will enter school ready to learn. This paper…

Examines the role of metaphors in teaching science. Suggests that when such expressions are used correctly, they can greatly enhance learning. Argues that metaphors also enable students to create new and interesting formations of thought. (CW)

Examines the relationship between story-telling and children's construction of meaning. Includes transcripts of children's discussions of a story involving Vietnamese refugee children. Maintains that children, especially when given encouraging contexts, can construct and discover meaningful insights. Discusses the role of the teacher in this…

Government commissions have demonstrated that residential schools' ability to educate aboriginal students was compromised by widespread problems including (a) inadequate curriculum, staffing, instruction time, and parental involvement; (b) racism; (c) prohibition against the use of aboriginal language; and (d) maltreatment. This article uses…