Educators are at the epicenter of language policy in education. This book explores how they interpret, negotiate, resist, and (re)create language policies in classrooms. Bridging the divide between policy and practice by analyzing their interconnectedness, it examines the negotiation of language education policies in schools around the world, focusing on educators’ central role in this complex and dynamic process. Each chapter shares findings from research conducted in specific school districts, schools, or classrooms around the world and then details how educators negotiate policy in these local contexts. Discussion questions are included in each chapter. A highlighted section provides practical suggestions and guiding principles for teachers who are negotiating language policies in their own schools.

As the most restrictive language policy context in the United States, Arizona’s monolingual and prescriptive approach to teaching English learners continues to capture international attention. More than five school years after initial implementation, this study uses qualitative data from the individuals doing the policy work to provide a holistic picture of the complexities and intricacies of Arizona’s language policy in practice. Drawing on the varied perspectives of teachers, leaders, administrators, teacher-educators, lawmakers and community activists, the book examines the lived experiences of those involved in Arizona’s language policy on a daily basis, highlighting the importance of local perspectives and experiences as well as the need to prepare and professionalize teachers of English learners.

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.

In an effort to reverse the purported crisis in U.S. public schools, the federal government, states, and districts have mandated policies that favor standardized approaches to teaching and assessment. As a consequence, teachers have been relying on teacher-centered instructional approaches that do not take into consideration the needs, experiences, and interests of their students; this is particularly pronounced with English learners (ELs). The widespread implementation of these policies is particularly striking in California, where more than 25% of all public school students are ELs. This volume reports on three studies that explore how teachers of ELs in three school districts negotiated these policies. Drawing on sociocultural and poststructural perspectives on agency and power, the authors examine how contexts in which teachers of ELs lived and worked influenced the messages they constructed about these policies and mediated their decisions about policy implementation. The volume provides important insights into processes affecting the learning and teaching of ELs.

Diversity - social, cultural, linguistic and ethnic - poses a challenge to all educational systems. Some authorities, schools and teachers look upon it as a problem, an obstacle to the achievement of national educational goals, while for others it offers new opportunities. Successive PISA reports have laid bare the relative lack of success in addressing the needs of diverse school populations and helping children develop the competences they need to succeed in society. The book is divided into three parts that deal in turn with policy and its implications, pedagogical practice, and responses to the challenge of diversity that go beyond the language of schooling. This volume features the latest research from eight different countries, and will appeal to anyone involved in the educational integration of immigrant children and adolescents.

This book brings together visions and realities of multilingual schools throughout the world so as to examine the pedagogical, socioeducational and sociopolitical issues that impact on their development and success. It considers issues of multilingual schooling in different countries and for diverse populations.

This new edition of takes a fresh look at enduring questions at the heart of fundamental debates about the role of schools in society, the links between education and employment, and conflicts between linguistic minorities and "mainstream" populations.