Abstract

Education in general, and bilingual education in particular, faces many challenges in the U.S. As an immigrant receiving country, the U.S. is in dire need of sound language programs that will both maintain the use of home language and improve the English proficiency of bilingual children. This will also benefit the monolingual English-speaking students as well. This study looks into a new emerging movement deeply involved in education: The Hizmet Movement. Its emergence, philosophy, educational practices, and approaches to bilingual education are the focus of the study. The research question aims to bring out the views of HM administrators on education as well as bilingual education. The present day leader of the HM, Mr. Fethullah Gülen, was interviewed and his responses were taken as the basis for the HM’s educational philosophy. Phenomenology was adopted as a research method to collect, process, and analyze data. Some key findings include the following: a) the HM participants see education as a lifelong process to be pursued with passion and interest, b) the Gülenian approach offers a more Sufism oriented socio-cultural approach to education that includes altruism, inner ethics, morality, and tolerance, c) bilingual education does not exist in HM schools. However, those schools qualify as multicultural and/or multilingual schools in terms of student body with educators offering education in a monolingual setting, d) Mr. Gülen sees women as an indispensable part of the society and education