This ethnographic study relates the differences reported by student teachers as they experienced teaching in a culturally diverse elementary school that contained a large population of minority students and compared that placement with a rural school that had few or no minority students. The methodology involved preplacement interviews, journals, written comparisons, and postplacement interviews with 20 student teachers in South Central Pennsylvania. Tables I through IV contain the major findings of the study and relate: (1) the preplacement expectations of the student teachers; (2) the postplacement reactions; and (3) the differences between the school that contained the large minority population and the school that contained few or no minority students. Student teachers reported that there was a lack of praise of students in the minority school, and that black students tended to be ambivalent toward academic efforts and success, findings that point to a need for more praise, not less. The comparisons made by these student teachers indicate the necessity of helping teachers develop cultural awareness. (Contains 15 references.) (SLD)