This text contains case studies relating the experience of bilingual children in various settings in New Zealand schools. The contexts include a Maori immersion school, a Samoan bilingual unit and mainstream classrooms which cater for immigrant and deaf children. Suggestions for educational policy, teacher development and research are made.

Roger Barnard is Chairman of the Department of General and Applied Linguistics at the University of Waikato, where he teaches postgraduate programmes in Second Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. His current research interests focus on interaction in school and university classrooms, viewed from a sociocultural perspective.

Ted Glynn is Foundation Professor of Teacher Eucation at the University of Waikato. He has a background in applied behaviour analysis, inclusive education, and bicultural and bilingual education as well as extensive experience in working to improve the literacy outcomes for Maori students in both mainstream and Maori immersion settings.