The articles in this special issue use the concept ''language ideology'' in research on educational phenomena. This concept has been developed in linguistic anthropology over the past two decades, where it has facilitated many interesting analyses of language use in cultural context (Schieffelin, Woolard, & Kroskrity, 1998). This special issue shows how a focus on language ideology can enrich educational research as well.
This introduction makes four main points. First, it describes the larger theoretical context for our work on language ideology and education. Second, it defines the concept of language ideology as it has been used in linguistic anthropology. Third, it sketches how language ideology might be a useful concept in educational research. Finally, it offers a brief overview of the four articles in this issue.
Our work on language ideology and education is part of a larger strategy in research on linguistics and education, a strategy that might contribute to a ''linguistic anthropology of education.'' Linguistic anthropologists study the role language plays in culturally patterned behavior. Contemporary linguistic anthropology has become a particularly fertile field both in its theoretical insights and in its empirical contributions. The best contemporary linguistic anthropology has maintained a linguistic emphasis on theoretical systematicity and analytic rigor, while applying this to understand culturally embedded verbal behavior (e.g., Hill & Irvine, 1992;-showing empirically how the cultural contexts of language use intertwine with language's structural properties.
At the same time, other contemporary social scientists have become more interested in language. Cultural anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, and others have increasingly been using language and discourse as explanatory constructs in their theories of culture, identity, learning, and other central human