To determine the ability of both black and white children to repeat sentences which conform to the grammatical rules of standard versus nonstandard English, and to examine how attendance at racially and socioeconomically integrated versus segregated schools affected performance in standard and nonstandard English, third and fourth graders were divided into four groups. Groups 1 and 2 consisted of 80 black children from low-income homes. About half of these children had attended an integrated school in a suburban area since their entrance into school. The remaining children had attended an all-black school in their own neighborhood. Groups 3 and 4 consisted of 60 middle-income, mostly white children, who had attended a segregated school in their own neighborhood. Results revealed that black, low-income children performed significantly better than white, middle-class income children in recalling nonstandard sentences. Black, low-income children who had attended an integrated school were both better on standard and poorer on nonstandard sentences than similar children who had attended a segregated school. (SW)