This article is concerned with ethical aspects of the relations between language minorities using signed languages (called the Deaf-World) and the larger societies that engulf them. The article aims to show that such minorities have the properties of ethnic groups, and that an unsuitable construction of the Deaf-World as a disability group has…

Recent national security concerns and global trade interests have led many to claim that there is a foreign language "crisis" in the US. Some argue that heritage and community language (HL-CL) speakers in the US constitute a resource waiting to be tapped to solve this crisis. This article addresses the issue of whether heritage and community…

Learning to read and write is a psycholinguistic and social process. That is why mother-tongue speakers of minority African languages find learning to read in the language they speak is a qualitatively better learning experience than learning to read in a language they are unfamiliar with. However, reading methodologies used for teaching reading…

This study was conducted to understand student identities of five Japanese children (the second through sixth grade) and the processes of identity negotiation within their sojourning experiences between Japan and the United States. An increasing number of Japanese elementary students internationally sojourn in today's globalized societies, and…

Health-care access for immigrants in the United States is often problematic because of language barriers, lack of health insurance, or differing expectations based on divergent medical systems in the U.S. and the immigrants' home countries. Such difficulties are exacerbated when a linguistic-minority population lives in a rural community that has…

This study examined the effects of computer access and computer use on the science achievement of elementary school students, with focused attention on the effects for racial and linguistic minority students. The study used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) database and conducted statistical analyses with proper weights and…

The need to address adolescent literacy, with a focus on English Language Learners, has created a growing realization that instructional practices need to change. Two recent studies conducted by the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth and the Carnegie Corporation of New York's Panel on Adolescent English Language…

The present research was undertaken to identify sociocultural variables that influence whether Russian-speaking parents living in Estonia choose Russian, Estonian, or bilingual (Russian and Estonian) instruction for their children. To examine which sociocultural variables are related to parents' choice of language of instruction, 346…

This article explores the possibilities and impossibilities of establishing queer discursive spaces within a minority-language high school. Data examined here are from a three-year study of language and identity in a Francophone high school in Ontario, Canada. As two members of the larger research team, we draw on our close observations of teenage…

The aim of this paper is to emphasize, as stressed by St. Clair (1982), the importance of sociohistorical data in any attempt to determine language attitudes, ethnolinguistic identity, and the ecological status of a minority language. This importance is illustrated within the context of research on language attitudes toward isiXhosa, a Nguni…

This guide for teachers in times of trauma was updated after the events of September 11, 2001--the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These traumatic events could cause refugees to experience trauma or become re-traumatized. For many refugees, their English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs are the places where they…

Examines literacy practices in a Corsican bilingual classroom--where both Corsican and French are used--and focuses on the way that pedagogical practices attribute authentic and powerful identities to both the minority language and to learners. (Author/VWL)

An El Paso middle-school teacher and her barrio students corrected each other and learned from each other daily. Her most difficult challenge was convincing kids to become more assertive when they felt they were mistreated by other teachers. Students wanted others to respect them and to refrain from prejudging them, laughing at their English, or…

Discusses minority language education in Malaysia, a multilingual and multicultural country. Looks at four language minority groups and what they have done to to provide beginning education programs for their children that use the children's native languages. (Author/VWL)

Examines first year results of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) required for students to earn a high school diploma. Results suggest this high stakes test failed to meet legislative objectives to increase achievement and close the achievement gap. Instead, language-minority students with passing scores achieved significantly below…