ABSTRACT
This chapter presents data from a parent meeting on budgetary issues to introduce the concept of linguistic capital, which is central to the existing research literature on bilingual education and parent involvement. It then reviews key issues in this literature: the advantages of bilingual education; the capacity of linguistically diverse parents to be fully involved in their children’s schooling; and the potential for conflict between families from different social class, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds. The final section of the chapter introduces the book’s central theoretical framework, which synthesizes Wenger’s work on communities of practice with Canagarajah’s work on translingual practice in contact zones.
