As a result of large-scale migrations from the less developed to the more developedcountries, the multilingual, multicultural school is becoming a reality, not only in cities withtraditionally large immigrant populations such as New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto, butthroughout North America and Western Europe. Indeed, the 1990 U.S. Census shows that one inevery seven children between the ages of 5 and 17 comes from a home where a language otherthan English is spoken. These major demographic changes have left many teachers and otherschool personnel unprepared to deal with the new realities of the multilingual, multiculturalclassroom. Edwards' brief volume is directed to mainstream classroom teachers who, ifcurrent trends continue as expected, will spend much of their careers in even more linguisticallyand culturally diverse schools than exist currently. Edwards' intent is to counterwidespread myths about second language learning and bilingualism, and to assist teachersmaximizing the rich educational resource that the multicultural, multilingual schoolrepresents.