Language minority students filter what they hear in the classroom through their own anxieties at having to process and perform in a mainstream environment. An understanding of the principles of language development from the field of applied linguistics can help instructors work more effectively with language minority students. Several principles…

This study examines the linguistic features of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics test items and investigates the significance of language-related variables for NAEP's assessment in the content area of mathematics. The continuing increase in the number of language minority students in classrooms nationwide has…

This paper suggests that a discussion of linguistic pluralism in France begins by chronicling the emergence of French as the primary language in early French history and the role of linguistic minorities at various periods in French history. It then focuses on growing linguistic activism in the second half of the twentieth century, when the…

This essay contrasts two approaches to household bilingual education with respect to the notion of identity. The notion of lingualism is presented. Lingualism emphasizes the continuum between monolinguals and bilinguals through a nonquantifying understanding of language (including speech, writing, gestures, and language potential). Kouritzin's…

This Issue Brief describes school-to-home communication practices and opportunities for parent involvement at school as reported by parents of U.S. school-age students from primarily English-and primarily Spanish-speaking households during the 2002-03 school year. Data are drawn from the Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the…

This study investigated the writing processes of first grade bilinguals from majority- and minority-language backgrounds who were in a two-way bilingual education (TWBE) program. The program integrated native English and native Spanish speakers for all or most of the day, promoting high academic achievement, dual language and literacy development,…

This study examined the impact of implementation of the Ghanaian government's mother tongue language policy, noting whether bilingual/mother tongue education would lead to improved academic achievement of elementary school students or would reinforce the marginalized position of linguistic minority children in developing countries. Data came from…

This paper argues for the need to move beyond the paradigm of parental involvement in reading, which presently informs home/school reading programs for linguistic minority children in the United Kingdom (UK). The first part of the paper examines the literature informing the current model showing the marked absence of studies on the role played by…

This study investigated teacher efficacy in the context of diversity, focusing on: whether elementary school teachers' feelings of efficacy would differ according to their students' language backgrounds; whether the teachers' feelings of efficacy in teaching standard English speaking students would relate to their feelings of efficacy in teaching…

This annotated bibliography presents studies that address the interplay of power and ideology in language policy. The studies assert that all the conflicts and oppositions between groups, disguised as either language, ethnic, or social movements, have the same basic aim: the quest for power and inclusiveness in the mechanisms of the state. The…

A study of school effectiveness for language minority students, authored by Virginia Collier and Wayne Thomas, is criticized as having two serious flaws. The first is that its methodology is a simple descriptive cohort analysis, seen as unscientific and producing misleading results because: each grade consists of different students; the number of…

In spite of considerable progress on racial equality issues and multicultural education made in the schools of the United Kingdom, many areas of disadvantage remain for ethnic minority students and some new ones have emerged. Quite apart from the moral and educational imperatives behind policies against racism, there are legal implications for…

Enrollment of language minority students continues to outpace overall enrollment growth. In the ten-year period from 1991-92 to 2001-02, California's public schools added more than one million students, an increase of 20 percent. In the same period, the number of English learners (ELs) increased by 44 percent and the number of Fluent English…

Discusses the function of Spanish in the school lives of Mexican American children, documenting the discussion through the experiences of five fifth-grade friends. Spanish serves to unify them, but it also serves to keep others out of the friendship group. Educators must recognize that language minority children have special needs. (SLD)

This article summarizes the concepts discussed in a five-article clinical forum on cultural/linguistic variation and its implications for assessment and intervention in speech-language pathology. Topics discussed include a need for a paradigm shift in assessment, the socioemotional factors affecting student performance on assessments, bilingual…