In recent years, studies of bilingualism and SLA have paid increasing attention to the contexts in which languages are acquired and used. This broadened perspective has led scholars to combine insights from a number of different disciplines. In this highly original study, Okita combines insights from studies of families, ethnicity, and bilingualism to examine the factors that promote or inhibit Japanese maintenance by the children of British fathers and Japanese mothers living in Britain. The result is a finely nuanced study that illustrates the difficulties of maintaining a minority language in a setting that provides few sources of institutional support.

The book is divided into 10 chapters. After a brief introductory chapter, Okita lays out the multidisciplinary conceptual framework in chapter 2. She notes that “invisible mothers and invisible work have been recognized in family study, but not yet incorporated in studies of bilingualism” (p. 33). This study, like other recent work focusing on language use in the domestic realm (e.g., Piller, 2002; Schecter & Bayley, 2002), represents a new direction for research in bilingualism, and the use of methods drawn from family studies is particularly welcome. Chapter 3 presents the methodology in considerable detail. Like much of the best recent work on bilingualism, Okita draws on multiple methods including surveys, life histories, and structured interviews.

In chapter 4, the author provides a broad overview of Japanese-British families, based on survey results. Chapter 5 focuses on the initial language decisions of 28 intermarried families, with an emphasis on the changing sociohistorical context and the dynamics of decision making in the microcontext of the family. In chapter 6, Okita examines the sometimes changing language practices in the families studied as children move through different stages of childhood and as family circumstances change. She observes the influence of children's growing autonomy from the ages of 9 to 11 and notes that during this period children become “truly interactive agents” (p. 125) and that their own preferences and priorities begin to play a larger role in family language decisions. Okita also notes the increasing disparity between children's abilities in Japanese and English as they move through English-medium schools, where they are exposed to increasingly abstract vocabulary and concepts that they cannot express in Japanese.

Chapter 7 focuses on childrearing, with particular attention to the division of labor in families. In many cases, the families' decision to raise children bilingually resulted in strengthening the division between traditional maternal homemaker roles and the paternal breadwinner roles because mothers had the added responsibility of ensuring that the children learned Japanese, a task that the British fathers, who for the most part believed that bilingualism would provide increased opportunities for their children, were unqualified to perform. In chapter 8, Okita focuses on the complexities of negotiating the sometimes competing demands of school and Japanese language maintenance. The author describes how children as young as 4 or 5 years would sometimes return physically tired from school only to be faced with the choice between extracurricular activities and sitting down to learn the complex Japanese writing system.

The final two chapters deal with the complex connections among family relationships, identity, and ethnicity. As Okita notes, language practices can have profound effects on many areas of life, including family relationships. In particular, the decision to continue with Japanese in some cases resulted in the isolation of fathers, who were less proficient in the language than either their spouses or their children.

This volume is a valuable interdisciplinary examination of an understudied community and an important contribution to the study of childhood bilingualism and minority language maintenance and shift. Like other work on children's bilingualism (e.g., Zentella, 1997), Okita's book serves to remind us that raising a child bilingually is not the result of a one-time decision, nor, in societies like Britain and the United States, is it an easy task. Rather, the families Okita so sensitively describes were subject to numerous conflicting pressures that often militated against minority language maintenance. This fine work of scholarship will be useful reading not only for researchers in first and second language acquisition and bilingualism but also for scholars in family studies, ethnic studies, and child development.