Explanations of minority school failure incorporate native definitions of failure and minority group membership. They are limited by their starting assumptions and they are apologies for our present system. Minority school failure and its explanations by social scientists are two levels of the same process that we need to confront. (Author/VM)

Reviews other articles in this special issue. The two traditional explanations of school failure by minority children do not conflict, yet neither is a complete explanation by itself. A more holistic picture of school success and failure is emerging as educators and social scientists view schools, children, and the community in a more complex and…

This commentary points out problems with the cultural difference and castelike theories of minority group school failure. It can be shown that both have some merit if studies are conducted of the reasons why children enjoy some classes which fit their peer group dynamics and reject those which do not. (VM)

Three aspects of desegregated schools, dealt with in the other articles in this volume, are discussed: the relation of stratification in the community to social relations and academic identities in the schools; the distinction between school desegregation and school integration; and the problem of time lag in the study of emergent social…

A measure of standard English (SE) performance was administered to children from ten culture/language groups in the Western United States. The results of the test indicate that elementary school children from a wide variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds experience difficulty with the same SE grammatical features. (Author/AM)

There are discrepancies between the school performance of mainstream students and ethnic minority students. In educational anthropology there have been two explanations, cultural difference and cultural discontinuity. The articles in this special issue explore the relationships between these two schools of thought. (VM)

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…

Explanations for the low school performance of minority children are critiqued. When these explanations are considered in light of social theory, it can be seen how the legitimacy of schools and teachers are factors in school success. A new, more culturally responsive pedagogy is necessary. (VM)

Examines the effects of linguistic and cultural diversity on the educational achievement of working class and minority students by reappraising the deficit/difference controversy of the 1960s and 1970s and examines how class and politics shape both cultural-linguistic and school-based assumptions about language and literacy. (Author/BJV)

Presents the results of observation and interview studies of sibling caretaking and peer assistance in Native Hawaiian contexts, and compares these activities in natal and school activity settings. Classrooms should be accommodated to selected features of natal culture activity settings. (Author/BJV)

Reviews research on the relationship of cultural background to academic achievement. Concludes that the most successful approaches to minority education recognize and use cultural background in the activity settings in which the learning process takes place. (FMW)

Claude Goldenberg's claim that there are compatibilities between minority children's home and school experiences is critiqued on the following points: (1) the methodology is not ethnographic; (2) home-school cultural compatibilities are not demonstrated; and (3) the model of literacy acquisition is not supported by current theory and research.…

Working class immigrant youth are frequently more successful in school than nonimmigrant students of similar background if they receive all their schooling in their new homeland. This article explores the forces that allow the children of Punjabi Sikh farm families to succeed academically in spite of severe handicaps. (VM)

Oriental Jewish youth in Israel and poor Black American youth must both compete for educational credentials in social situations in which power relationships are heavily weighted against their interests. Their divergent behavioral responses are related to the different world views and corresponding strategies for social advances of the two groups.…

Studied whether school culture is represented in common aspects within schools in different countries for one deaf child in Barcelona (Spain), one refugee child in Paris (France), and some of their classmates. Identical characteristics of student interactions found in both schools, and the importance of these interactions are discussed. (SLD)