Bilingual Advantage

Rebecca M. Callahan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas, Austin, where she is a faculty affiliate of the Population Research Center. Her primary research interests center on the academic preparation of bilingual immigrant adolescents as they transition from high school into young adulthood.Patricia C. Gándara is Research Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. She is co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, and a commissioner on President Obama's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Her research focuses on language policy and racial equity.

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.

• 1. Rebecca M. Callahan and Patricia C. Gándara: Contextualizing Bilingualism in the Labor Market: New Destinations, Established Enclaves and the Information Age 2. Reynaldo F. Macías: Benefits of Bilingualism: In the Eye of the Beholder? 3. Sarah Catherine K. Moore, Molly Fee, Jongyeon Ee, M. Beatriz Arias and Terrence G. Wiley: Exploring Bilingualism, Literacy, Employability, and Income Levels among Latinos in the United States 4. Joseph P. Robinson-Cimpian: Labor-market Differences between Bilingual and Monolingual Hispanics 5. Amado Alarcón, Antonio Di Paolo, Josiah Heyman and María Cristina Morales: The Occupational Location of Spanish-English Bilinguals in the New Information Economy: The Health and Criminal Justice Sector in the U.S. Borderlands with Mexico 6. Amado Alarcón, Antonio Di Paolo, Josiah Heyman and María Cristina Morales: Returns to Spanish-English Bilingualism in the New Information Economy: The Health and Criminal Justice Sectors in the Texas Border and Dallas-Tarrant Counties 7. Orhan Agirdag: The Literal Cost of Language Assimilation for the Children of Immigration: The Effects of Bilingualism on Labor Market Outcomes 8. Rubén C. Rumbaut: English Plus: Exploring the Socioeconomic Benefits of Bilingualism in Southern California 9. Lucrecia Santibañez and María Estela Zárate: Bilinguals in the U.S. and College Enrollment 10. Diana Porras, Jongyeon Ee and Patricia C. Gándara: Employer Preferences: Do Bilingual Applicants and Employees Experience an Advantage? 11. Ursula Aldana and Anysia Mayer: The International Baccalaureate: A College-Preparatory Pathway for Heritage Language Speakers and Immigrant Youth 12. Patricia C. Gándara and Rebecca M. Callahan: Looking toward the Future: Opportunities in a Shifting Linguistic Landscape