The fifth edition of this bestselling book provides a comprehensive introduction to bilingualism and bilingual education. In a compact and clear style, its 19 chapters cover all the crucial issues in bilingualism at individual, group and national levels. These include: defining who is bilingual and multilingual testing language abilities and language use languages in communities and minority groups endangered languages language planning, language revival the development of bilingualism in infancy and childhood bilingualism in the family age and language learning adult language learningbilinguals' thinking skills bilingualism and the brain theories of bilingualism types of bilingual education heritage language education evaluations of bilingual education minority language literacy biliteracy and multiliteracies effective teaching and learning methods in bilingual classrooms the effectiveness of bilingual education in the United States the history of bilingual education in the United States language minority underachievement bilingual special education the assessment of language minority children Deaf bilinguals the spread of English as a global language learning English as a second or third language language identity and multiple identities the politics surrounding language minorities and bilingual education assimilation and pluralism bilingualism and employment bilingualism and the internet