This is more than a case study of a single school; it is an analysis, normative in character but based upon fact, of the conditions of slum schooling in the United States. What it means to go to a slum school and to be a black child is made clear, as is why the achievement of minority children in school is low. As a participant-observer, the…

This paper has presented some of the major conclusions arising out of a clinical study of a group of fifth grade achievers and underachievers from an urban lower class Negro public elementary school. The major factors which distinguished the group of achievers from the group of underachievers were those in the area of quality of interpersonal…