Studies of Mexican Americans, the third largest minority group, have resulted in an effort to understand them as well as to provide opportunity of exploring whether new trends have appeared among Mexican Americans. This fast-growing group has had a profound effect in settling the Southwest and has been the product of prejudice and discrimination socially, politically, and economically. Cultural characteristics of Mexican Americans have limited the amount of acculturation into American society. An important feature of the Mexican American group is that its population is young (median age is 20). School attitudes and attainments and poor scholastic performance are influenced by language, home environment, teacher attitudes, and the nonacademic courses in which students are placed. Dropout rates present another problem but have not been sufficiently studied. Delinquency rates and trends are traced to dissatisfied status in school, low-income background, and low social status. A small percentage of Mexican American youth do have mobility aspirations and achievement values, comparable to their Anglo American peers. Impediments in achieving this upward mobility are lack of resources, few success models, and fewer opportunities, which tend to reflect the prejudice and discrimination. (CM)