Most of the chapters in this book grew out of the Conference on the Academic Performance of Minority Children held at Cornell University in 1982. Six hypotheses about minority school achievement are presented. After a general introduction by Ulric Neisser, John Ogbu describes the effects of caste and argues that black school children are preparing themselves for the roles they expect to play later on. A. Wade Boykin discusses black culture and argues that schools are structured to maintain the hegemony of the white middle class. Ron Edmonds documents the principal differences between effective and ineffective schools. Brown, Palincsar, and Purcell examine the differential treatment effect in reading instruction and describe new participatory teaching techniques that may reduce achievement gaps between successful and unsuccessful students. Reginald Gougis argues that black students suffer stress from racial prejudice that has negative effects on learning. In the final two chapters, Richard Darlington presents findings on the effectiveness of Head Start programs and Herbert Ginsburg reviews cross-cultural and subcultural research, concluding that basic abilities for school subjects are equally present in every cultural group. (CG)