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Professional Attitudes and Experience in Relation to Bilingual Children Attending Language Units
Author(s) -
Crutchley Alison
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1080/0141192990250307
Subject(s) - metropolitan area , cohort , psychology , unit (ring theory) , bilingual education , qualitative property , head teachers , qualitative research , mathematics education , neuroscience of multilingualism , pedagogy , medical education , developmental psychology , sociology , medicine , social science , pathology , machine learning , computer science , neuroscience
A large‐cohort study looking at children with speech and language difficulties attending ‘language units’ across England identified a small subgroup of the cohort who were bilingual. Interview data were collected to try to shed light on differences found between this ‘bilingual’ subgroup and the rest of the cohort. Head‐teachers and language unit teachers were asked about levels of involvement of bilingual parents in school or unit life, about the level of provision available for bilingual children in the local education authority (LEA) and about the adequacy of this provision. Qualitative analysis of ‘themes’ indicated that differences existed between head and unit teachers in patterns of answers in all of these areas. However, relating these qualitative results to quantitative data from a questionnaire survey of English LEAs revealed that attitudes and knowledge also varied according to the location of the school (in a Greater London, metropolitan or non‐metropolitan LEA). It is thus suggested that these differences in attitude may be linked to the experience that unit and headteachers have of bilingual children and their families.