Abstract

Biliteracy - the use of two or more languages in and around writing- is an inescapable feature of lives and schools worldwide, yet one which most educational policy and practice continue blithely to ignore. The continua of biliteracy featured in the present volume offers a comprehensive yet flexible model to guide educators, researchers, and policy-makers in designing, carrying out, and evaluating educational programs for the development of bilingual and multilingual learners, each program adapted to its own specific context, media, and contents.

The continua model is a valuable tool for researchers, educational practitioners and policy makers who are committed to pursuing just language policies.

The volume is a marvellous corrective to the relative neglect of multilingual and multi-script literacies in much literacy research. It is especially satisfying to see this important new volume ‘framed’ by an icon of multilingual research and multilingualism sensibilities, Jim Cummins, in a foreword; and an icon of literacy ethnographies, Brian Street, in an afterword.

The value of this model is demonstrated in this book.

Dr Nancy H. Hornberger is Professor of Education and Director of Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, where she also convenes the annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. She specializes and has published widely in sociolinguistics, language planning, bilingualism and biliteracy, and educational policy and practice for indigenous and immigrant language minorities in the United States and internationally.

This varied collection provides a valuable resource for those who have a professional concern with literacy, including researchers, classroom teachers, and administrators who must make language and instructional programs choices that speak both to theoretical and practical instructional concerns.