Upon identification of the environmental robustness (social interaction) perceived by students and teachers in 6 classrooms in a predominantly black 185 pupil rural secondary school in Georgia, this field study describes and contrasts the structural features of classrooms as a means of producing an improved operational understanding of classroom robustness. Characteristics identified in high robustness classrooms include spontaneous student involvement in tasks; the teacher as a dynamic focal point for the class; informal classroom atmosphere; teachers who tend to be humanistic, flexible, relaxed, and confident. The Learning Environment Inventory (robustness relationships derived from analysis of variance) suggests that as classroom robustness increases, classroom organization involves less formal rules and regulations, a pace of work which is comfortable for students, just and universal application of student privileges, subject matter well within the ability levels of students, student satisfaction about tasks, clear objectives for student work, and sufficient flexibility in structure to allow for cliqueness. These findings support the central hypothesis: that environmental robustness is inversely related to organization routinization. The atypical sample school suggests caution in generalizing these findings to other classroom settings. (NEC)