Parents, Personalities and Power

Huw Thomas is a former headteacher of Welsh-medium comprehensive schools and an adjunct member of the LPPR Unit at Cardiff University. Colin Williams is Research Professor and Director of the Language, Policy and Planning Research Unit at the School of Welsh, Cardiff University

• Foreword Colin Baker Chapter 1 An Act of Faith Colin H. Williams Chapter 2 A Dynamic Profile Huw S. Thomas Chapter 3 The Shifting Impact of Language and Identity Huw S. Thomas Chapter 4 Understanding Power Huw S. Thomas Chapter 5 The Articulation of Power Huw S. Thomas Chapter 6 An Evolving Synergy Huw S. Thomas Chapter 7 Future Prospects for Welsh-medium Education: Reflections from a Recent Migrant David Hawker Chapter 8 Parent Power Michael L. N. Jones Chapter 9 Local Authorities and Welsh-medium Education Geraint Rees Chapter 10 School Reorganization: A Lesson in How Not to Do It. The Case of Canton, Cardiff West Rhodri Morgan Chapter 11 The School Phenomenon: Encouraging Social Language Use Patterns in Welsh-medium Education Jeni Price Chapter 12 Transforming Strategies: Pathways to an Integral Education System Colin H. Williams and Merion Prys Jones

This well-balanced and detailed study of the involvement of government and parents to the successful growth of Welsh-medium schools in south-east Wales is a major contribution to our understanding of the possibilities of bilingual education and how it may be achieved. Although intended to advise Welsh parents of the nature of the process, it carries a basic message for all involved in trying to improve educational systems, making clear the important role of parents in sharing in the decision-making process. It adds Welsh-medium schools to the classic cases of successful parental intervention - the revitalization of Hebrew in the farming villages of Ottoman Palestine about 1890, the development of French-immersion classes in English-speaking schools in Quebec in the 1960s, and the regeneration of Maori through the grass-roots language nests of New Zealand in the 1980s.