Cummins, James (1949-)

James Cummins is an internationally renowned researcher and advocate in the field of language minority education. His academic work has had a significant influence on the theoretical discourse of bilingual education and bilingual-ism. His professional interests include research on the acquisition of conversational and academic proficiency in a second language, the efficacy of language minority education programs, as well as social justice issues and how coercive power is wielded in international arenas. Much of Cummins's research has focused on the nature of language proficiency and second-language acquisition, with particular emphasis on the social and educational barriers that limit academic success for language minority students.

Born in Ireland on July 3, 1949, and raised there, Cummins credits his academic interests partially to growing up there in the 1950s and 1960s, when school policy reflected a desire to revitalize Gaelic, the Irish language. His book Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society reflects his dual concern with interpersonal negotiation of identity between educators and students and how this process relates to the broader operation of power relations in society.

Cummins received a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Alberta in 1974. Previously, he had been awarded a bachelor of arts degree by the National University of Ireland in 1970. He has been a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto since 1980 and recently was appointed as a Canada Research Chair at the OISE. He is well-known for his theoretical and seminal contributions [Page 211]during the 1970s, including a theoretical perspective on the relationship between bilingualism and thought; the influence of bilingualism on cognitive growth; linguistic interdependence; and the educational development of bilingual children.

Cummins is perhaps best known for his having introduced the distinction between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) in order to highlight some of the challenges encountered by language minority students as they attempt to catch up to their peers in academic aspects of the school language. BICS refers to conversational fluency in a language, while CALP refers to students' ability to understand and express, in both oral and written modes, concepts and ideas that are relevant to success in school—in other words, more-academic language. His work in this arena is not without controversy. In the Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Cummins describes the origin, rationale, and evolution of the concept together with empirical evidence of the BICS/CALP distinction. He also responds to critiques of the BICS/CALP theory.

Cummins has studied and lectured all over the world. He delivers 12 to 15 keynote/invited plenary presentations a year and more than 40 workshops to educators on topics related to language learning, bilingual education, English as a Second Language, multicultural education, special education, technology and education, and educational reform.

In 2005, Cummins was invited to deliver the Joan Pedersen Memorial Distinguished Lecture on “Diverse Futures: Rethinking the Image of the Child in Canadian Schools.” He was honored in 2000 when his 1986 paper “Empowering Minority Students: A Framework for Intervention” was selected by the Harvard Educational Review (HER) to appear in the HER Classics Series. This series consists of 12 papers published in HER between 1931 and 2000 that are recognized as having made particularly notable contributions to education. In May 1997, Cummins was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from the Bank Street College of Education in New York.

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