Abstract

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.

Terrence G. Wiley is Professor of Education and Applied Linguistics in the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. University of Southern California and holds MAs in Linguistics and Asian Studies. His research and teaching have focused on applied linguistics, language policy, English and globalization, language and immigration, bilingual education and bilingualism, heritage and community languages, as well as English as a second language, and he has lectured widely on these topics internationally. Professor Wiley is co-founder and co-editor the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education (Taylor & Francis/Routledge). He is author of Literacy and Language Diversity in the United States (Center for Applied Linguistics).

Jin Sook Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her PhD in Education from Stanford University and an MA degree in Linguistics from Yonsei University in Korea. Her research focuses on the educational processes of immigrant children, in particular as they pertain to the understanding of the cultural, sociopolitical, and sociopsychological factors that influence and shape their language learning and development. She is an active member of the American Educational Research Association and the American Association of Applied Linguistics and serves on the editorial board of the International Multilingual Research Journal (Taylor & Francis). She is a recipient of the Foundation for Child Development Young Scholars Award.

Russell W. Rumberger is Professor of Education in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California (UC) Santa Barbara and for ten years served as Director of the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute (UC LMRI), a UC multi-campus research unit that fosters interdisciplinary research to improve academic achievement of children from diverse language backgrounds. He received a Ph.D. in Education and a M.A. in Economics from Stanford University. He has published widely on education and work; the schooling of disadvantaged students, particularly school dropouts and linguistic minority students; school effectiveness; and education policy. He is directing the California Dropout Research Project to develop a state policy agenda to improve Californiaâ??s high school graduation rate (http://lmri.ucsb.edu/dropouts/).

This is an important volume with immediate implications for educators and policy makers. Co-edited by three leading scholars in the field of language minority education, The Education of Language Minority Immigrants in the United States will be a valuable resource in graduate courses in language policy, sociology and anthropology of education, and multicultural education; and will be of particular interest to researchers of bilingual education and policy studies. A key strength of this book is its interdisciplinarity, bringing experts from diverse fields ranging from applied linguistics to sociology to economics. A further strength of the book is its judicious presentation of both large-scale quantitative studies and in-depth ethnographic investigations. I recommend it to all researchers, educators, and policy makers who are concerned with the education of language minority students.