In this paper we report on a longitudinal study of the linguistic development among Turkish-speaking children in Denmark. A series of data were collected from a group of children attending a public school in Køge during the period 1989-1998 and from the same group--now in their 20s--in 2006-2007. The data set has been analyzed from a number of…

Early years' immersion education programmes can be either monolingual or bilingual, and their objectives can range from language maintenance and/or enrichment to early second language learning, depending on the context of implementation. Here we examine some of the key issues and policy concerns relating to immersion education in the early…

The purpose of this research was to better understand the bilingual and biliteracy skills of Spanish-speaking low-socio-economic status (low-SES) children who attended an English or a bilingual programme during preschool and kindergarten/first grade, and to determine whether their outcomes varied according to instructional language and primary…

This study explores early francization models for a linguistic minority currently struggling to preserve its language. The French Acadians of New Brunswick, Canada, represent 30% of the province's total population, yet their numbers and their linguistic vitality are decreasing. New Brunswick has two public school systems: the English language…

A challenge noted in a number of endangered language contexts is the need to mix second-language (L2) learners of the target language with first-language (L1) speakers of that language in a less planned way than is found in the two-way immersion approach. Such mixing of L1 speakers of the target language with L2 learners arises from the difficulty…

In Australia, languages education in early childhood and primary education includes three main approaches: transitional, enrichment and full bilingual programmes. This article proposes that transitional and enrichment programmes in Australia are constituted and shaped by competing and contested institutional, material, discursive and economic…

European higher education institutions are in general highly committed to internationalisation, seeing it as providing ways into the global education market, as an indicator of academic excellence, and for generating income. In multilingual settings, minority languages are not always given adequate consideration in this process and may be a source…

Two-way immersion (TWI), an approach that combines language-minority students and native English speakers in dual-language classrooms, is growing in popularity in schools of newly Latinized regions of the U.S. Using North Carolina as an example, this critical review of the literature posits that as neoliberal trends increasingly shape the…

The media in general and newspapers in particular have a powerful influence on the formation of public attitudes in society. This study aimed at identifying and analyzing the ideologies of two newspapers in Arizona in regard to English language learners. Using discourse analysis, 90 texts published by "The Arizona Republic" and the…

This article examines a wide array of research on the link between school choice programs and student segregation and draws implications for the Obama Administration's policy promoting the national expansion of charter schools. The research demonstrates how the proliferation of charter schools risks increasing current levels of segregation…

Background: Language minority students, who are mostly immigrant students tend to perform at lower levels in school and to be at risk of school failure when they are limited in English proficiency (LEP). Objective: Based on the previous studies that addressed the importance of students' social skills for school success, I examined the social…

Parents who enroll their children to be educated through a threatened minority language frequently do not speak that language themselves and classes in the language are sometimes offered to parents in the expectation that this will help them to support their children's education and to use the minority language in the home. Providing…

This study explores how the language minority provisions in the Voting Rights Act (VRA) affect Latino voter registration. We are particularly interested in how these provisions affect Latino citizens with varying levels of English language proficiency. Using data from the 2006 National Latino Survey, we find that Latino citizens with limited…

The articles in this special issue provide a complex picture of acquisition in bilinguals in which the factors that contribute to patterns of performance in bilingual children's two languages are myriad and diverse. The processes and contours of development in bilingual children are influenced, not only by the quantity, quality, and contexts…

Growth modeling was applied to monolingual (N = 26) and bilingual (N = 28) word learning from 14 to 36 months. Level and growth rate of vocabulary were lower for Finnish-Russian bilinguals than for Finnish monolinguals. Processing of Finnish speech sounds at 7 but not at 11 months predicted level, but not growth rate of vocabulary in both Finnish…