This book is directly concerned with the reasons underlying bilingual children's poor performance on standardized tests. It is the authors' contention that without an understanding of the nature of bilingualism itself, the problems encountered by bilingual individuals on such tests will continue. The volume's primary purpose is to contribute to the development of a research, knowledge, and theoretical base which can support the testing of bilingual individuals. By reviewing and discussing both the nature of bilingualism and the nature of standardized testing and by presenting a detailed agenda of the questions that must be answered the authors hope to influence existing and future policies which govern the use of tests and test results. This area is of increasing importance to American education and the policy implications are evident.

This book explores how high-stakes tests mandated by No Child Left Behind have become de facto language policy in U.S. schools, detailing how testing has shaped curriculum and instruction, and the myriad ways that tests are now a defining force in the daily lives of English Language Learners and the educators who serve them.

This book is directly concerned with the reasons underlying bilingual children's poor performance on standardized tests. It is the authors' contention that without an understanding of the nature of bilingualism itself, the problems encountered by bilingual individuals on such tests will continue. The volume's primary purpose is to contribute to the development of a research, knowledge, and theoretical base which can support the testing of bilingual individuals. By reviewing and discussing both the nature of bilingualism and the nature of standardized testing and by presenting a detailed agenda of the questions that must be answered the authors hope to influence existing and future policies which govern the use of tests and test results. This area is of increasing importance to American education and the policy implications are evident.

This book constructs a historical narrative to examine the social consequences of testing faced by language-minoritized bilinguals in the United States. These consequences are understood with respect to what language-minoritized bilinguals faced when they have sought (1) access to civic participation (2) entry into the United States, (3) education in K-12 Schools, and (4) higher education opportunities. By centering the test-taker perspective with a use-oriented testing approach, the historical narrative describes the cumulative nature of these consequences for this community of individuals, which demonstrates how the mechanism of testing – often in conjunction with other structural and political forces – has contributed to the historic, systemic marginalization of language-minoritized bilinguals in the United States. By viewing these experiences with respect to consequential validity, the book poses questions to those involved in testing to not only acknowledge these histories, but to actively and explicitly incorporate efforts to dismantle these legacies of discrimination. The conclusions drawn from the historical analysis add an important perspective for educators and researchers concerned with inequities in the testing of language-minoritized bilinguals.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Free University of Berlin (John-F.-Kennedy-Institut / Abteilung Sprachwissenschaften), course: HS Language Policy and Language Use in Multicultural Societies, language: English, abstract: In the last decades, the number of bilingual children in German schools, most of them elective bilinguals, has continually increased. Numerous migrants and immigrants of all nationalities and of e.g. Russian and Turkish origin have raised their children in Germany while many of them never really learned to speak German as a second language (L2) additionally to their first language (L1). It is these kids of the second (or third) generation who are born as German citizens, receive German schooling and grow up bilingual. At home, often the native tongue of the parents is spoken. Due to being enclosed in a cultural community within their German community, they never learned to speak, read or write German properly. So the popular language at home remains the parents’ L1. The children are usually and according to law raised and educated in German institutions (kindergarten, school). They pick up German as a second language, if for example Turkish or Russian is mainly spoken at home. Or they even learn German as L1, when one or both parents have a sufficient command of the German language. “Bilingualism in migrant communities differs from the more stable and (to some extent) institutionally legitimized types of bilingualism [...] Characteristically, it spans three generations, the oldest speaker sometimes being monolingual in the community language, the economically active generation being to varying degrees bilingual but with greatly differing levels of competence in the host language, while children born in the host community may sometimes be virtually monolingual in the host language” (Milroy and Muysken 1995, p. 2). These are two examples of possible bilingualism as they can be found with the children of migrant and immigrant families. So the reality in most of Berlin schools is that, depending on the district, a high to very high percentage of the pupils in school are ”Schüler-nicht-deutscher-Herkunftssprache”1. Recently a test has been designed to evaluate the skills of children who enter elementary school. This test, “Bärenstark”, will be critically discussed later in this paper. As a matter of fact, the importance of testing verbal skills seems to grow in Germany.

Written as an introductory text from a crossdisciplinary perspective, this book covers individual and societal concepts in minority and majority languages.

This encyclopedia is divided into three sections: individual bilingualism; bilingualism in society and bilingual education. It includes many pictures, graphs, maps and diagrams. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography on bilingualism.

Minority and Cross-Cultural Neuropsychological Assessment pulls together neuropsychological assessment issues across a wide range of minority groups and populations currently underserved. Included are chapters related to African-Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Hispanic/Latinos, Native Americans, and Rural Populations. Some minority groups have not been as widely studied or examined as other groups from a neuropsychological assessment perspective. This book will fill this obvious void. Other chapters are devoted to traditions and trends in clinical neuropsychology, and there is a section that examines the future of minority and cross-cultural issues in neuropsychological assessment. The current literature regarding minority and cross-cultural issues in neuropsychological assessment is quite scattered and it is the goal of this book to provide a more thorough review and refinement of the issues presented.

Jim Cummins grew up speaking Irish and English, and has drawn on that experience to develop innovative practices of teaching bilingual children, mostly in Canada. British psychologists and educators apply his ideas to the educational assessment of children who alternate between two or more languages every day, and will eventually have to be proficient in all of them in order to communication with people who are important in their lives. No index. Distributed in the US by Taylor and Francis. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR