In this article, the authors discuss how Bennington College Early Childhood Center (ECC) developed a dual language program. In a dual language program, children are immersed in two languages throughout the day. Each classroom has two teachers, one speaking English, the other the second language exclusively. Children learn the second language in…

Describes the birth of a French immersion program in a Newfoundland primary school, attended by French-speaking, English-speaking, monolingual, and bilingual students. It is designed especially for the French-speaking minority in danger of losing its native language and culture to assimilation processes. (AM)

Discusses the schooling of Mexican American and Puerto Rican children in U.S. schools prior to 1960. Describes policies that aimed to force acculturation, ban the use of Spanish, and channel Hispanic children into programs that virtually guaranteed that they would pursue low status occupations. (GC)

The status of higher education provided to the francophone minority outside Quebec is examined, including accessibility of French-language institutions, francophone assimilation, and the effects of bilingual institutions on francophones. Research on these issues are summarized, and experiences with French-language schools in Alberta are discussed.…

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first off-reservation boarding school and began the social experiment of assimilation of Native Americans into American culture. For almost 40 years, from 1879 to 1918, the school sought to civilize "savage" Indian children. Richard H. Pratt, founder of the school, believed that the school…

"Transitions: Destruction of a Mother Tongue" is a documentary film by Blackfeet filmmakers Darrell R. Kipp and Joe Fisher. The film recounts the history of the destructive forces affecting Blackfeet culture and language. Kipp and others created the Piegan Institute, a nonprofit organization that researches, promotes, and preserves…

Bilingual education programs and policies in three countries with sizable minorities, Sweden, Australia, and the Federal Republic of Germany, are examined in order to gauge both the extent to which children with limited proficiency in the dominant language are in integrated classrooms and the degree of their social integration. First, the…