Examines Muhlhausler's thesis that to understand the decline of small languages, one must comprehend ecological factors comprising each language's support system. Discusses the Harakmbut peoples of southeastern Peru, examining their concept of territory, which provides context for understanding environments that support Harakmbut and Spanish.…

Discusses the Literacy Campaign in English, one of three native language extensions of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas' National Literacy Crusade, explaining how it highlights how state policy and grassroots initiatives interact in indigenous/ethnic language maintenance in Latin America. Analyzes literacy materials designed for the English-speaking…

Contrasts and compares experience in mainstream schools and in bilingual initiatives, in particular the Vienna Bilingual Schooling Middle School. Bilingual schooling is seen as potentially offering a more supportive environment although local contexts may create problems of implementation and integration. (Author/VWL)

Investigates the academic success of bilingual primary school children from various language backgrounds in a monolingual Greek Cypriot-speaking school environment and their mastery of modern Greek by comparison with their monolingual counterparts. Examines whether these children face any problems of socialization, adjustment, and cultural…

Explores the understandings that young Mexican-American students develop about the status of languages and language use in their bilingual school. A case study documents the the social and educational processes through which bilingual children in one U.S. school come to appreciate the prestige and power of English versus Spanish. (Author/VWL)

Traces the reemergence of Spanish and Hebrew--the first languages of the author's son--after 6 years spent in an all English-speaking environment. Data consists of tape-recorded sessions, supplemented by a diary and cards with notes and linguistic examples from ages 6 months to 14 years and 3 months. (Author/VWL)

Discusses use of the mother tongue in bilingual content teaching as well as in conventional foreign-language classes. The controversy over mother tongue is examined by analyzing a history lesson taught in English as a foreign language. Suggests brief use of the mother tongue can function as a learning aid to enhance communicative competence in the…

Explores how Americanization and Russification differed in terms of their imperialist language policies and how these policies led two colonialized societies, Puerto Rico and Estonia, to respond in dramatically different ways to the pressures to learn English and Russian respectively. (Author/VWL)

Investigated whether the threshold-level hypothesis could be applied to a three-language-in-contact school situation. Looks at one of these three-language-in-contact school situations in the Basque Country of Spain, a bilingual community where both Spanish and Basque are official languages and are therefore taught in school. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on African-American students' math and reading achievement in a Spanish-English two-way immersion program, from grade 1 to grade 4. Shows African-American students perform significantly lower than do majority White students on achievement tests at all grades. There is no significant difference between the two ethnic groups in Spanish…