The language of school is very often an obstacle to the successful education of indigenous, migrant, and minority children. One such group in Europe, the Romani, constitutes an ideal case of educational injustice meeting linguistic difference, racism, social marginalization, and poverty. Notwithstanding its virtues, rights-based advocacy for…

In this paper we describe single-event Rapid Word Collection (RWC) workshop results in 12 languages, and compare these results to fieldwork lexicons collected by other means. We show that this methodology of collecting words by semantic domain by community engagement leads to obtaining more words in less time than conventional collection methods.…

The steady increase in immigration in the United States over the past few decades has focused attention on the necessity for school districts to provide English language services in order for children with diverse language backgrounds to participate fully in public education. In this study, we utilize a large state-representative sample of…

Drawing on ethnographic data collected in two primary schools, this paper examines the nature of the exclusion experienced by three children of linguistically, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse families labeled as having special education needs. Ambiguities and dilemmas surrounding the intersection of cultural diversity and special…

The notion of the Deaf community as a linguistic-cultural minority has been increasingly recognized and studied over the last two decades. However, significant differences of opinion and perspective within that population typically have been neglected in the literature. Social dominance orientation (SDO), a theoretical construct, typically…

The term "translanguaging" has appeared with growing frequency in research about the education of linguistic minority students. Amid increasing application of the term, concern emerges regarding the consistency of its definitions and characterizations, specifically with respect to the term's social justice implications, which risk…

This paper contributes to recently expanded interest in documenting variable as well as categorical patterns of endangered languages. It describes approaches, tools and curricular developments that have benefitted from involving students who are heritage language community members, key to expanding variationist focus to a wider range of languages.…

The debate surrounding disproportionality in the identification of culturally and linguistically diverse students for special education, and in the category of emotional disturbance in particular, remains highly contentious, particularly as scholars grapple with the meaning and causes of disproportionality. In this article, I discuss assumptions…

Although it is disregarded and banned, a person can be discriminated in the society according to various attributes--due to the person's language, religion, nationality, social background. The problem touches upon not only individuals but minorities as well. Almost all states have one or several groups--minorities--that differ from the main…

The US Census projects that the Hispanic community in the United States will reach 128.8 million by 2060, and this growth requires a better understanding of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL). This essay examines three future areas of development within SHL instruction. First, more communication between communities of research and practice is…

This regional dossier aims to provide a concise description of the European minority language, Romansh, in education. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects such as the number of schools, teachers,…

Prior research describes the positive benefits of dual language education as increasing students academic performance in addition to promoting bilingual development. However, these studies have not adequately addressed the tensions that exist in developing Latina/o communities bilingualism. This paper addresses the issue of bilingual development…

Language shift happens when a group of people stops using one language in favor of another, such that subsequent generations no longer acquire the original language. Research on the sociolinguistics of language shift has tended to focus on languages in advanced states of endangerment, where most or all children in the community have already…

Based on small case-study illustrations from a variety of European countries, this study aims to explore methodological aspects of the study of curriculum history by expanding its traditional research scope. In so doing, it is argued that sociolinguistic issues are essential to this discussion. The main argument is that sociolinguistics and…

The lexical restructuring model (LRM) is a theory that attempts to explain the developmental origins of phonological awareness (PA). According to the LRM, various characteristics of words should be related to the extent to which words are segmentally represented in the lexicon. Segmental representations of words allow children to access the parts…