Language, Power, and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire

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Multilingual Matters, Jan 1, 2000 - Education - 309 pages
As linguistic diversity increases in countries around the world, policy-makers and educators are faced with complex and conflictual issues regarding appropriate ways of educating a multilingual school population. This volume reviews the research and theory relating to instruction and assessment of bilingual pupils, focusing not only on issues of language learning and teaching but also the ways in which power relations in the wider society affect patterns of teacher-pupil interaction in the classroom.
 

Contents

Theory as Dialogue
1
Issues and Contexts
8
Language Interactions in the Classroom From Coercive to Collaborative Relations of Power
31
The Nature of Language Proficiency
53
Language Proficiency in Academic Contexts
57
Critiques of the ConversationalAcademic Language Proficiency Distinction
86
Assessing Second Language Proficiency Among Adults Do We Know What We Are Measuring?
112
Dilemmas of Inclusion Integrating English Language Learners in StandardsBased Reform
140
From Bilingual Education to Transformative Pedagogy
169
The Threshold and Interdependence Hypotheses Revisited
173
Research Theory and Policy in Bilingual Education Evaluating the Credibility of Empirical Data
201
Challenging the Discourse of Disempowerment Through Collaborative Dialogue
232
Transformative Pedagogy Who Needs It?
246
References
284
Index
307
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About the author (2000)

Jim Cummins teaches at the University of Toronto, Canada. His research has focused on the nature of language proficiency and second language acquisition with particular emphasis on the social and educational barriers that limit academic success for culturally diverse students.

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