This report summarizes knowledge about the linguistic and academic effects of bilingual education. The main focus is placed on the effects of using minority student’s experience of attending kindergarten affect minority students linguistic and academic achievement is being discussed. The report discusses a theoretical basis for bilingual education and major Scandinavian and North-American empirical studies are presented. Methodological problems related to effect studies in educational research in general are reflected upon. The study reveals only a few Scandinavian effect studies. There exist no studies of how Norwegian-as-a-second-language has affected minority students. Some studies confirm that attending a kindergarten do have long-term effects on minority children’s school achievement. When it comes to the use of mother tongue in education, the results are mixed. No studies reveal a negative effect, some studies report effect of long-lasting bilingual education. International research gives evidence for a strong form of bilingual education, where the long term aim is to create bilingual and bicultural minority language children.
RSS
