Encyclopedia of Language and Education

Abstract

* Language and education are two enormous areas of inquiry, so to tackle both fields in a fair and comprehensive manner, even within a multivolume encyclopedia, is a daunting task. Corson, the general editor of this eight-volume publication, has bravely accepted this challenge in the Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Each volume is hardbound, handsomely printed, and coedited by a scholar whose specialty is the focus of that particular issue. As can be seen by the names of the topics and the individual coeditors, this encyclopedia is wide-ranging and, in general, well represented. Volume 1, coedited by Ruth Wodak, deals with language policy and political issues; Volume 2 looks at literacy and is coedited by Viv Edwards; Volume 3 covers oral discourse and education and is coedited by Bronwyn Davies; Volume 4, coedited by G. Richard Tucker, examines L2 education; Volume 5, coedited by Jim Cummins, takes up bilingual education; Volume 6 focuses on knowledge about language and is coedited by Leo van Lier; Volume 7, coedited by Caroline Clapham, studies language testing and assessment; and the final volume covers research methods and is coedited by Nancy Hornberger. The volumes are each about the same length, ranging between 250 and 378 pages, and each book follows a similar format and contains between 22 and 30 short articles. Altogether there are more than 200 articles written by approximately 230 scholars from around the world although the vast majority of the contributors come from the U.S., Europe, and Canada. Each volume contains a subject and name index, and the final volume has a useful cumulative index where a reader can readily access references to any topic or author cited within any volume. In his introduction to the series, Corson notes that the unifying perspective for all the authors is an interest in the practice and theory of education itself' (p. vii). This brief observation hints at a prominent though implicit theme that pervades this series-a concern with critical theory. In the cumulative index, there are 40 separate entries citing this viewpoint, and over 100 citations for these entries are listed among the eight volumes. This interest in critical pedagogy has tended to prevent a ill derive many ideas for desig ing conte t-based reading-writing our es and for guidi ethnographic and class oom-oriented research.