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James W. Tollefson is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Washington, Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong, and Consulting Professor at the Research Center for China Foreign Language Strategies at Shanghai International Studies University. His primary research interests are in language policy and applied linguistics (especially language education) in multilingual contexts. Four central themes of his research are: (1) the links between language policy and other areas of social policy; (2) the impact of language policies in education; (3) the central role of language in education; and (4) English as an international language. During the early 1980s, Tollefson spend more than a year conducting research in the refugee camps of Southeast Asia

He has published more than eleven books, including Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues (1st and 2nd editions); Power and Inequality in Language Education; Planning Language, Planning Inequality; Alien Winds: The Reeducation of America's Indochinese Refugees; The Strength Not to Fight: Conscientious Objectors of the Vietnam War; and (with Amy Tsui) Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Context and Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda? His articles appear in journals such as Discourse and Communication, Review of Research in Education, TESOL Quarterly, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Problems and Language Planning, Word, and many other publications. He has taught or served as a visiting professor in Japan, the Philippines, China, Yugoslavia, and Slovenia, and his books have been translated into Arabic and Chinese. His current research (2015) examines the role of mass media in language policy, research methods in language policy and planning, and language and ideology.