Critical Research Issues in Bilingual Secondary Education

Researchers continue to be interested in those subjects generally regarded as fundamental to bilingual education: second language acquisition, biliteracy, curriculum development, dual language pedagogy, the relation of first and second language development, assessment of language development in bilinguals, and others. Studies in these areas should and no doubt will continue. My task in this presentation is to go beyond these important fundamental issues by addressing the question, How can bilingual education be fitted into a general conception of education, and, by extension, how does research in bilingual education relate to the critical issues being addressed in education in general by researchers not particularly interested in bilingual education? My response entails the presentation of a series of topics, perhaps even a research agenda, for bilingual education in the immediate future, with an emphasis on the secondary level. I have chosen four general topics in which I will suggest a role for bilingual education research. Each of them will be discussed below: school restructuring, systemic school reform, de-tracking, and home-school isomorphism.