Critical issues for language and content in mainstream classrooms: Introduction

The teaching and learning of language and curriculum content in the same classroom at the same time is an increasingly important area of research within bilingual education and related fields. This article introduces a special issue consisting of six research articles on this theme. The article maps out four dimensions of language and content integration: curriculum and policy, institutional, classroom interactional and theoretical and methodological. The six papers are then summarised in terms of this framework. Finally, three themes common to the six articles are highlighted and discussed. These themes concern teacher agency, meaningful participation and power relations.