Abstract:
Access to bilingual education has been a contentious political subject throughout United States
history, despite significant evidence of the cognitive, psychological, cultural, academic,
professional, and communicative benefits of bilingualism. While much of the existing research
largely focus on the experiences and linguistic proficiencies of students in bilingual education,
there is a lack of research on the relationship between bilingual education and language
retention. This thesis uses qualitative surveys of alumni of bilingual and monolingual education
programs to evaluate the relationship between bilingual education and language retention, and
proposes that both bilingual education and continued language use in a variety of contexts are
predictive factors for strong language retention post-K-12 education for alumni of United States
public schools.
