The Education of Language Minority Immigrants in the United States draws from quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to inform educational policy and practice. It is based on cutting-edge research and policy analyses from a number of well-known experts on immigrant language minority education in the USA. The collection includes contributions on the acquisition of English, language shift, the maintenance of heritage languages, prospects for long-term educational achievement, how family background, economic status, and gender and identity influence academic adjustment and achievement, challenges for appropriate language testing and placement, and examples of advocacy action research. It concludes with a thoughtful commentary aimed at broadening our understanding of the need to provide quality immigrant language minority education within the context of globalization. This collection will be of value to students and researchers interested in promoting educational equity and achievement for immigrant language minority students.

The U.S. population is diverse. With nearly 20% of children and adults in the United States speaking a native language other than English, the need for information about language and literacy skills has never been greater. In this revised edition of Literacy and Language Diversity in the United States (first published in 1996), the author takes a fresh look at the issues related to the differences between the literacy performance and educational achievement of language minorities and native speakers of English in this country and the social and educational policy debates that surround literacy in the 21st century.

Product Description: This special issue demonstrates how local knowledge can productively complicate a few representative fields in the discipline--literacy practices, sociolinguistics and language death studies, English-language teaching, and bilingual education...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)