This chapter provides an overview of the current status of bilingual education in the United States, with a special focus on trends in research and policy in this area. In the context of the present volume, it is appropriate to acknowledge that bilingual education in this country refers almost exclusively to the education of “limited-English-proficient” (LEP) students who have an oral, non-English primary language. For example, the major federal instrument to support bilingual education, the Bilingual Education Act (also known as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act), makes no mention of programs for deaf students. Despite many obvious parallels and similarities, there has been little contact between researchers, practitioners, and policy makers who work with LEP children and those whose concerns lie with another subpopulation of bilingual children, namely, the Deaf. This chapter is prepared from the perspective of researchers in bilingual education, rather than Deaf education, with the hope that the issues we raise may help to identify the parallels and differences that exist between these areas.

Definitions

A most pressing issue in the area of bilingual education has been to specify the definition of bilingualism. For a first-hand experience, the next time you have a captive group of people interested in bilingualism (as in a graduate seminar), try asking them to jot down spontaneously a definition of what it means to be bilingual.