Editors' Introduction:

Celebrating 25 Years of Achievement in Bilingual Education Scholarship Through the Bilingual Research Journal

This issue of the Bilingual Research Journal (BRJ) is an exciting and eclectic assemblage of papers from professionals with a wide range of interests. It also represents the 25th Silver Anniversary year of the Journal. From its debut in 1976 as the Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education, the BRJ and its editors have attempted to produce an academic journal that readers would find informative, timely, and appealing,

Those early years were truly exciting. BRJ and NABE were both engaged in "raising" a profession—much as one would raise a child. There were good times and trying times. But NABE and its journal have managed to persevere through different types of struggles. The latest of these were naked attempts to get rid of bilingual education in California, Arizona, and Colorado. The perversity of these attacks is nothing short of un-American and undemocratic behavior. NABE and the Journal have stood as beacons of stability during the turbulance that has characterized these past three years.

I am happy to report that Volume 25 will continue in the tradition of excellence established by our predecessors. When Josué M. González and I began our terms as Co-Editors, we agreed that our primary focus would be to maintain the quality of the BRJ while attempting to catch up nine issues of deficit. It is fitting that this year will see the BRJ completely caught up, on schedule, and replete with excellent research and information. For the timeliness we thank our very dedicated and extremely professional staff, who continue to amaze us with their willingness to work hard on behalf of the BRJ. To all of you—we thank you.

For the excellence of research, we thank our contributors and our reviewers. None of this academic excellence would be possible without your tremendous sense of duty and dedication. Hopefully "the Journal" will always be here when you need to disseminate and report your work.

The lead article in this issue is written by Virginia González. In "The Role of Socioeconomic and Sociocultural Factors in Language Minority Children's Development: An Ecological Research View", the author brings together literature from research in several disciplines to focus on child development from an ethnic minority perspective. More specifically, González examines the external factors influencing child development from a developmental psychology perspective, along with the socioeconomic and sociocultural factors that play a vital role in language minority children's development. This is critical and timely work.

N. Eleni Pappamihiel describes a study on the anxiety felt by middle school Mexican girls when being mainstreamed into all English classes. Pappamihel examined boys and girls and although she found no gender differences, she did find that young Mexican girls feel more anxiety and stress over interactional concerns. Her study is one of few that make a connection to the classroom and offers recommendations for teachers.

Maria R. Coady introduces the readers to the attitudes toward bilingualism in Ireland. Coady's scholarly treatment of this topic is timely. This is an excellent reading for those who are interested in public policy and language policy. Coady does an excellent job of integrating quantitative and qualitative data in this piece.

The next three articles deal with Latino communities and families. First, Jorge P. Osterling discusses the needs of a large Salvadoran community in northern Virginia. The author provides a description and a case study of the challenges, academic, social and otherwise of refugee students in the American school system. This is a much-needed area of study and Osterling has done a an excellent credible job of showcasing the needs in this particular community. In the second of these three articles, Zulmara Cline presents an interesting analysis of a real-life case of Latino parents fighting a political battle with a public school system in California. Cline's narrative provides a case study perspective of an issue that needs to be heard at the national level. The author shows that parents can and will fight for their children's educational rights. The story is well told and it's framed in a way that contributes to a deeper understanding of many aspects of what goes on in school districts—curriculum building, teacher-administrative relations, and parent_school relations among others.

The third article in this trilogy is from Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Judith K. Bernhard, and Marlinda Freire. Their subject is Latino students and their families in the Canadian school system. As part of a larger study, these researchers were able to obtain information about a community in the midst of an unwanted assimilative process. Families and individuals find themselves losing their native Spanish and the parents appear to be trying desperately to prevent their children from losing their home language. The authors offer excellent suggestions to schools so that they may be able to recognize a family's cultural and linguistic capital.

Minglang Zhou's article on the politics of bilingual education in the People's Republic of China is enlightening. Zhou provides the reader with a historically grounded perspective on language policies as they relate to language minority education in China. With 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in the People's Republic of China, one begins to understand the challenge of implementing bilingual education policy in China. Zhou does an admirable job of explaining its intricacies.

Michael D. Guerrero's contribution to this issue is an excellent qualitative study of K-3 Spanish reading programs in four high-performing Texas schools. The study represents an in-depth look at three U.S./Mexico border schools and one non-border urban school. This study represents a continuing look at academic performance in schools that have been labeled as "exemplary." Guerrero's choice of title for the article makes this required reading for those interested in raising performance levels in schools and policy recommendations that result from this exercise.

In our Research in Practice section, the Bilingual Research Journal is fortunate to present Yvonne S. Freeman, Sandra Mercuri, and David E. Freeman, authors of the lead article in this section. In "Keys to Success for Bilingual Students with Limited Schooling," the authors have produced a descriptive study of one bilingual teacher who has successfully worked in multiage 4th, 5th, and 6th grades, with children speaking Spanish, Mixteco, and Triqui. This language grouping represented a unique situation for the teacher. The authors were able to identify many different research-based strategies used by this teacher in the classroom. It is these keys that provide her students with academic success.

Olga Maia Amaral's article is a timely study of parental choices in Southern California. This is an important article for the post-227 era. This study provides important information on implementation issues and alternatives addressed by this one school district. This article is full of very interesting descriptive data along with excellent background information on the school district. This kind of information is germane to our work as bilingual educators.

This anniversary edition of the BRJ closes with a book review by Kim Potowski on B. Norton's Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. Potowski effectively illustrates how Norton incorporates a captivating ethnographic study of four immigrant women in Canada into second language acquisition theory. Through documenting these women's experiences with speaking English in the workplace and highlighting the instances of neglect and discrimination they each face, Norton reminds us that social construct has just as much, if not more, to do with acquiring a second language than simple motivation and training.

Alfredo H. Benavides, Ph.D.
Co-Editor Arizona State University
September 2001

 

Back