The basic question underlying the research reported in this paper is: To what extent does a difference between a child's cultural background and that of his teacher and his scholastic milieu affect his classroom attitude and performance? Questions arising from this basic one are: (1) What features of a child's cultural background directly or indirectly affect his behavior in the classroom? (2) What is the affect of cultural differences (a) between the teacher and the child? (b) on the teacher's perception of the child? (c) on the child's perception of the teacher and of the learning process and himself? (3) How effective are the usual techniques of evaluation used by teachers in measuring learning capacity and skill, cross culturally? The report focuses on the education of Afro-American children in the Berkeley (California) Public Schools, but the author hopes that the study will be useful in isolating some of the "universals" of cultural contact in the classroom. Individual sections (1) present an historical outline of black culture and education in the public schools; (2) discuss black culture and social interaction in the classroom; (3) discuss the performances of teachers whose classrooms were visited; (4) present transcriptions of taped instances of actual teacher-pupil interaction. The author stresses the preliminary nature of this work. (Author/FWB)