Emphasizes that culture should be defined to incorporate family, familial and community environments, and social norms. Discusses the way in which environmental norms enter into processes of individual development, and the application of the norms to the school achievements of African-American children. (RJC)

Demonstrates how minority "group" behaviors and beliefs can have complex and powerful effects on individual learning in the classroom. (HTH)

Attempts to define the cultural discontinuity (between schools and students) hypothesis by distinguishing between universal, primary, and secondary discontinuities. Suggests that each of these is associated with a distinct type of school problem, and that secondary cultural discontinuities commonly affect minority students in the United States.…

This paper evaluates the Institute's training program, which was designed to help teachers and other educators make parent participation and community involvement in bilingual/bicultural education more effective. Focused on is the effectiveness of the anthropological techniques to which participants in the training program were introduced. The…

Argues that child socialization is directed toward the development of instrumental competencies related to imperatives that vary across cultures. Criticizes the use of White middle-class standards in developmental research and proposes a cultural ecological model which studies competence in the context of the cultural imperatives of a given…

This book is about education in Burgherside, a low-income neighborhood in Stockton, California, the majority of whose residents are blacks and Mexican-Americans: They make up about 92% of the elementary school population. The study reported here probes into the reasons for many children from the neighborhood failing in public schools. The goal was…

Argues for the application of traditional anthropological ethnography in the study of formal education and for broadening the scope of such studies. Suggests an ecological framework that permits a multilevel application of ethnography in formal education. (Author/GC)

Argues for a reconsideration of how culture affects minority school adjustment and academic performance, suggesting that minorities who recognize cultural differences as barriers are more successful at crossing cultural boundaries. The author demonstrates this point through two case studies, one of a minority group that does not recognize cultural…

Discusses how culture affects minority school adjustment and academic performance and its influence on social mobility. The author proposes the use of a cultural frame of reference as a new level for analysis of the cultural problems that confront minority students at school. (GR)