A framework of non-western culture, specifically Asia and Africa, is provided in this 9th grade teaching guide. It is hoped that students will understand the heritage, situations, and problems of those emerging nations. Cross-cultural comparisons help students identify likenesses, differences, and effects of internal and external events on a culture in transition. Primary emphasis in six topics is upon furnishing a background for a realistic picture of modernization rather than upon traditional culture. The first topic gives students a cultural overview of the world today. Understanding African problems of cultural change in an area strongly influenced by its geography, traditions, and nationalistic feelings is emphasized in topic two. In topic three the range of Africa's history is discussed. South Asia (India and Pakistan), diversified in its topography, climate, peoples, languages, religions, and social status, is studied in topic four. The culture of China's past in light of today's world is examined in topic five. Major forces which helped to create the cultural traditions of Japan are analyzed in the last topic. Each of the six topics is arranged by several statements of understandings, and ends with a few brief lists of optional studies, generalizations, and concepts. (SJM)