Attempts to define the cultural discontinuity (between schools and students) hypothesis by distinguishing between universal, primary, and secondary discontinuities. Suggests that each of these is associated with a distinct type of school problem, and that secondary cultural discontinuities commonly affect minority students in the United States.…

Educational Anthropology has sought to explain performance differences between groups of students. The real issues are not language, cognitive style, or upbringing. Instead, the differences have to do with unequal educational opportunity, the relationship between minority and majority groups, and the lack of encouragement for minorities in the…

This paper evaluates the Institute's training program, which was designed to help teachers and other educators make parent participation and community involvement in bilingual/bicultural education more effective. Focused on is the effectiveness of the anthropological techniques to which participants in the training program were introduced. The…

This book is about education in Burgherside, a low-income neighborhood in Stockton, California, the majority of whose residents are blacks and Mexican-Americans: They make up about 92% of the elementary school population. The study reported here probes into the reasons for many children from the neighborhood failing in public schools. The goal was…

Argues for the application of traditional anthropological ethnography in the study of formal education and for broadening the scope of such studies. Suggests an ecological framework that permits a multilevel application of ethnography in formal education. (Author/GC)