The context of bilingual education

Abstract

Although much money and effort has been put into bilingual education, the field has not assumed the coherence which it might. In fact, it is a topic riddled with personal value judgements and ill‐conceived ideas. Chief among these are the inadequate appraisals of such large and important matters as ethnicity, cultural pluralism and language maintenance and shift. This paper illustrates some of these difficulties and attempts to show the vital importance of considering bilingual education and its implications in the broadest possible sociocultural perspective.