This volume will appeal to a broad readership. Researchers can build upon the findings shared within to further explore the role of bilingualism in the US economy. Educators will find in it a tool to help make the case for bilingual education programs...For policy makers, the book also offers insight into how bilingual Americans live in the United States and provides cause for considering the cost of not educating balanced bilinguals...This volume does not provide all the answers, but it does aim to initiate a discourse on the perceived bilingual advantage.
Enrique David Degollado, The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Lang Policy, DOI 10.1007/s10993-015-9362-2
This is the book we all have been waiting for. It does for bilingualism what Thomas Piketty has famously done for capitalism: it dismantles age-old myths and tired clichés with muscular data, conceptual clarity, and careful argumentation. In the Age of Globalization, we must undo the monolingual regime at the heart of the American experience and give children, youth, and indeed all citizens alike, the opportunity to fully partake of the 'bilingual advantage.' We will then be a richer, smarter, safer society.
Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Education, UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, USA Finally! Educators have been asking for this work for so long. There is no more timely issue for teachers, parents and policy-makers today than what research says about creating a system that fosters bilingualism among all students. After decades of politicized and polarized debates on English Only, it's time to have a thoughtful discussion of the enriching advantages of dual language acquisition as a basic part of public education.
Lily Eskelsen García, President, National Education Association, USA This is one of the most exciting books on bilingualism in the US that I have read in a long time! While many of us argue about the place of bilingualism in US schools, Callahan and Gándara have advanced the conversation by focusing on the economic return of bilingualism and its effect on the labor market. The analyses of large datasets, both quantitative and qualitative, and performed by US and European scholars, give evidence of the complexity of the economic effects of bilingualism, but also of new conditions in the global labor market in which young bilingual people operate today.
Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, USA