The thesis presented in this paper is that school failure among minority subgroups is related to the nature, characteristics, and function of public schooling as well as to the social structural position of the subgroups of which these children are members. An overview of some ethnographic studies of schools and the process of schooling is provided to illustrate the structural-functional orientation predominant in this body of literature. The paper is composed of two sections. The first section discusses concepts and theoretical orientations underlying the argument for a more structural, functional, and systematic approach to accounting for this problem of differential school outcomes. In this section, the focus is on a consideration of the nature of schools, the relationship of schools to social structure, and some predominant sociocultural functions of schools. The second section discusses some representative research on the actual school experiences of children from subordinate groups. Here the focus is on the manner in which schooling functions to perpetuate patterns of subgroup relationships predominant in the larger society via both latent and manifest structuring of differential classroom experiences. (RM)