Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in Multicultural Contexts

Demographic predictions are that students with close connections to their bilingual/bicultural heritages (now labeled “language minority students” by the federal government) will be very large in number in the near future, becoming the majority in many states over the next three decades. The authors feel it is the responsibility of all educators, not just specialists, to prepare themselves to work with language minority students. This time-tested classic text (not an edited volume) integrates theory and practice and provides comprehensive coverage of bilingual and ESL issues. The text integrates the fields of ESL, bilingual, and multicultural education and provides rich examples of effective practices and their underlying research knowledge base and provides an extremely clear and balanced overview of research on teaching in multilingual and multicultural contexts

Carlos J. Ovando is Professor of Education and Advisor, Initiative of the Americas, Office of the Vice President for University School Partnerships & College of Education, Office of the Dean, Arizona State University (ASU). Dr. Ovando has also served as Associate Dean for Teacher Education and Director for the Division of Curriculum and Instruction. Prior to joining the faculty and administration at Arizona State University, he served as chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Indiana University, Bloomington and also served as director of the Bilingual Education Program. He received his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and International Comparative Education from Indiana University. A former high school Spanish teacher, his research, teaching, and service focus on factors that contribute to the academic achievement of language minority students and ethnically diverse groups. He has served as guest editor of two special issues of Educational Research Quarterly, and contributed to the first and second editions of the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education. In addition, he has published in the following venues: Educational Researcher, Peabody Journal of Education, Bilingual Research Journal, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, Kappan Delta Pi Record, World Yearbook 2003: Language Education (Kogan Page/Thompson), and the Harvard Educational Review. His books include: (with Virginia P. Collier and Mary Carol Combs) Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in Multicultural Contexts, 3/e (McGraw-Hill, 2003); (with Peter McLaren) The Politics of Multiculturalism and Bilingual Education: Teachers and Students Caught in the Cross Fire (McGraw-Hill, 2000) and (with Colleen Larson) The Color of Bureaucracy: The Politics of Equity in Multicultural School Communities (Thompson/Wadsworth, 2001). Professor Ovando has given presentations in Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Egypt, England, Guam, Mexico, Nicaragua, The Netherlands, The Philippines, Spain, and The United States. He has been a professor of education at Indiana University, Oregon State University, the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and the University of Southern California. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica (Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos) and the University of Washington, Seattle. He has worked with Chicanos, Mexican Nationals, Athabascan Indians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, Southwestern Indians, Chamorros, Costa Ricans, and Nicaraguans. He is the recipient of two Teaching Excellence Recognition Awards from the School of Education at Indiana University. He has served as a Discipline Peer Review Committee member for the Fulbright Specialists Program as well as on the selection committee for the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program. He serves on the Editorial Board of the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ). Born in Nicaragua, Carlos Ovando immigrated to the United States in his pre-adolescent years and has therefore experienced first-hand many of the academic, sociocultural, and emotional issues, which confront language minority students in the United States. He is a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Mary Carol Combs is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Language, Reading and Culture, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in bilingual and multicultural education, American Indian bilingual education, English as a Second Language methodologies, and multicultural education. In addition, she is a research scientist at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA), University of Arizona, where she is conducting a study on the 1C, and Americanization program implemented in Tucson Unified School District from 1919 - 1965. Dr. Combs, academic interests include bilingual education policy and law, language planning, indigenous language revitalization and development, and bilingual and ESL teacher preparation. She is a former director of the English Plus Information Clearinghouse, a national clearinghouse on language rights and public policy based in Washington, DC, and she remains active in national networks concerned with policy developments in bilingual education. Dr. Combs received her Ph.D. in Language, Reading and Culture from the University of Arizona (1995), an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University (1983), and a B.A in German from the University of Michigan (1978).