in the United States

This chapter provides an overview of the current status of bilingual educa-tion in the United States, with a special focus on trends in research and. policy in this area. In the context of the present volume, it is appropriate to acknowledge that bilingual education in this country refers almost ex-clusively to the education of "limited-English-proficient " (LEP) students who have an oral, non-English primary language. For example, the major federal instrument to support bilingual education, the Bilingual Education Act (also known as Title W of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act), makes no mention of p r o g m for deaf students. Despite m y obvious parallels and similarities, there has been little contact between researchers, practitioners, and policy makers who work with LEP children and those whose concerns lie with another subpopulation of bilingual children, namely, the Deaf, This chapter is prepared from the perspective of researchers in bilingual education, rather than Deaf education, with th