This book examines the conditions for learning from the perspective of those students for whom schools are not productive and satisfying settings. Both current and desired characteristics of school environments are examined from the standpoint of their effect on marginal students. Questions probed include how difficulties begin and why individuals and groups are permitted to persist in unfavorable learning conditions or in unproductive patterns of behavior. Research reveals how marginality can affect students regardless of sex, race, family structure, or economic background and the systematic influence of these variables. The argument in the book is that sustained attention to the persistent difficulties of marginal learners is one key to a more sensitive and persuasive diagnosis of the problems of contemporary education. Nine interrelated chapters describe the problem of marginal learners in school environments and provide a practical approach for schools to reduce marginality. Chapters expand on crucial issues including curriculum; classroom responses to the marginal student; the school, the principal, and the marginal student; and families and schools together. Notes and references follow each chapter. (MLF)