As an example, one of the schools I have been studying is too small to compete effectively in most sports, but participates with vigor each year in the state music contests.

Cultural dominance of middle-class norms prevail in middle-class schools with a teacher teaching toward those standards and with students striving to maintain those standards.

The educational resources provided by a child's fellow students are more important for his achievement than are the resources provided by the school board.

The higher the social class of other students the higher any given student's achievement.

As an example, one of the schools I have been studying is too small to compete effectively in most sports, but participates with vigor each year in the state music contests.

Children from a given family background, when put in schools of different social compositions, will achieve at quite different levels.

It is one thing to take as a given that approximately 70 percent of an entering high school freshman class will not attend college, but to assign a particular child to a curriculum designed for that 70 percent closes off for that child the opportunity to attend college.