This is a report of a case study, in the anthropological tradition, of an elementary school with a bilingual-bicultural program. The research was carried out in 1978. The school is in a community of 45,000 located close to the California-Mexican border. Eighty-seven percent of the pupil population are of Hispanic background, 10 percent are Anglo, 1 percent are Filipino and slightly over 1 percent are black. The school has used a language maintenance bilingual education model since the program was begun in 1969. The study is based on a general view of schools as academic organizations with internally generated social norms, role expectations, and patterned behavior and as instruments of cultural transmission and socialization for the parental constituency and the broader culture/community. The research focused on questions relating to: 1) the interaction of cultural differences, schooling processes, and teacher behavior; 2) the effect of federal and state intervention on the organization of the program and the life of the school; and 3) the role and involvement of parents in the school. (Author)