In this article the authors present the results of a survey conducted with parents whose children are enrolled in dual language programs in Colorado. Furthermore, they describe why these parents were motivated to participate in a survey. Colorado is one of the states in which Ron Unz, a politician from California, is attempting to get voters to amend their state constitution to eliminate bilingual education as he did in both California and Arizona. Despite Unz's ignorance about what constitutes a bilingual program and his dismissal of dual language programs as too few in number, the results of the survey clearly indicate that both English-and Spanish-speaking parents freely choose these bilingual programs for their children, understand the model of dual language, and believe them to be effective. Although there were some differences between the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking parents' responses, particularly to open-ended questions, overall the survey findings dramatically counter bilingual opponents' claims that parents, particularly immigrant parents, do not want bilingual education for their children or that bilingual programs are forced upon them.
Findings from a two-year, sociolinguistic study of the use of English among five school-age immigrant children are reported. Data collection included participant observation of natural language use in the everyday lives of the children. The five children in the study are recent Mexican and Central American immigrants living in a Northern California barrio, a community populated primarily by other Spanish-speaking immigrants. Thefindings regarding the children's use of English discussed in this article allow a contrast between examples of what is called substantial or minimal contact with English. These selected findings illustrate how each of the five children's use of their second language could be facilitated or hindered, and how contact with English depended principally upon the children's English abilities. Implications for educational practice that concern Spanish-speaking immigrants who live in a relatively segregated community of a barrio are drawn from these findings.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.