A Historical Look at

Abstract

This paper examines the history of The Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), beginning with its first editor—Alma Flor Ada. It traces the shifting focus of the journal’s articles during each of its editorial eras, noting the changes between heavily politically-focused editors/eras and those focusing on issues such as evaluation and assessment, and psycho-social linguistics. The author provides a brief description of each editor’s tenure, noting their editorial philosophy as well as their major contributions to the journal. The author concludes that the journal’s continuing focus on evaluation/assessment and political articles is a reflection of the historical circumstances surrounding the issues of bilingual and bicultural education in the United States. She notes that the definition of bilingual education (i.e. receiving education in two languages) has changed in recent years to include mono-lingual programs like English as a Second Language and Language Immersion.