National Security And Economic Growth Through Foreign Language Improvement

This volume explores why Americans are among the least likely in the world to speak another language and how this U.S. foreign language deficit negatively impacts national and economic security, business and career prospects. Stein-Smith exposes how individuals are disadvantaged through their inability to effectively navigate the global workplace and multicultural communities, how their career options are limited by the foreign language deficit, and even how their ability to enjoy travel abroad and cultural pursuits is diminished. Through exploring the impact of the U.S. foreign language deficit, the author speaks to the stakeholders and partners in the campaign for foreign languages, offering guidance on what can and should be done to address it. She examines the next steps needed to develop specific career pathways that will meet the current and future needs of government, business, and industry, and empower foreign language learners through curriculum and career preparation.

To confront the twenty-first century challenges to our economy and national security, our education system must be strengthened to increase the foreign language skills and cultural awareness of our students. America's continued global leadership will depend on our students' abilities to interact with the world community both inside and outside our borders. This report warns that the U.S. will become less competitive in the global economy because of declining quality foreign language education at the college and high school level. Additionally, the American public's deficiency in foreign languages and cultures is hampering efforts to counter terrorist threats. To have a citizenry that is knowledgeable of world regions, global issues, and foreign cultures, as well as conversant in other languages, we will need to strengthen the curriculum of the K-12 education system as well as that of our colleges, universities, and professional schools. Although there is much that can be done by states, governors, business leaders, and others, leadership by the Federal government will be crucial in jump-starting this effort. This report recommends (1) teaching international content across the curriculum and at all levels of learning to expand American students' knowledge of other countries and cultures; (2) expanding the training pipeline at every level of education to address the paucity of Americans fluent in foreign languages, especially critical, less-commonly taught languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian/Farsi, Russian, and Turkish; and (3) national leaders--political leaders as well as the business and philanthropic communities and the media--should educate the public about the importance of improving education in languages other than English and in international studies. Appended are: (1) A Timeline of Important Developments in International Studies and Foreign Language Education; and (2) Major Federal Legislation Pertaining to International Studies and Foreign Language Education. (Contains 167 endnotes.) [This report represents a statement by the Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development. For the Executive Summary of this report, see ED502295.].