Sharon L. Bain came to Bryn Mawr College as a graduate student in the fall of 1997, where she had the privilege of studying under such scholars as Dan Davidson, Richard Brecht, Elizabeth Cheresh Allen, and Aneta Pavlenko. Her early research consisted of studies of the cognitive processes that learners utilize as they acquire a second or subsequent language. Later Dr. Bain’s research interests expanded to include the sociolinguistic elements of language learning, and she began to look closely at language acquisition in a study abroad context, language learning and identity, and language maintenance among heritage speakers of Russian.

Dr. Bain completed her dissertation in 2004. Her study describes a Russian heritage language community in Philadelphia and examines its effort to maintain the Russian language within an English-dominant environment. Borrowing principles from the field of ecology, Dr. Bain’s study evaluates the viability of a Russian-English dual-language program in a local elementary school. She notes that changes in the national education policy environment, brought about by the passing of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in January 2002, threatened the dual-language program’s ability to maintain long-term viability. Because NCLB requires schools to concentrate their financial and human resources on promoting academic achievement in English only, emerging dual-language programs, like the one in Philadelphia, must use innovative strategies and stretch limited resources in order to adapt and survive in the current English-dominant context. Her current research centers on American Councils’ Flagship initiative for advanced learners of Russian.

Dr. Bain joined the Department of Russian at Bryn Mawr College in the fall of 2004 to teach language, applied linguistics, and folklore. In the summer Dr. Bain directs the Governor’s Russian Studies Academy, an intensive language-learning program for high school students held at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA.