Oak View School, Huntington Beach (California) is reflective of demographic changes due to the rapid increase in the number of ethnic minority students. The school has created goals for quality education for immigrant and minority children and is attempting to respond to the needs of its culturally diverse, although largely Hispanic, population. Teachers are challenged to respond to diversity, and this review has been designed to explore how a teacher's culture affects classroom dynamics, how the different cultures of the students affect those dynamics, and how culturally responsive teaching can improve classroom dynamics. A look at educational history shows that schools in the United States have always had to respond to the country's attitude toward cultural diversity. Educational research in recent years has begun to focus on student language as one of a number of factors related to student success. It is increasingly recognized that teaching should be culturally responsive, and that culturally responsive teaching recognizes that the power and status relations between minority groups exert a major influence on school performance. Culturally responsive curricula and teaching methods evolve from a knowledge base that identifies and understands cultures and is sensitive to the ways cultural characteristics influence learners. Teachers must recognize the importance of students' lack of empowerment. Teacher culture defines class dynamics, and student culture shapes class dynamics. Culturally responsive teaching can improve classroom dynamics because the teacher works to reverse his or her underlying prejudices. (Contains 10 tables and 49 references.) (SLD)