This book presents some language studies which have been conducted with children from lower socioeconomic and minority groups over the past four years (1972-1976). These and other studies indicate that children who live in poverty can succeed in school and that, when these children do not succeed, it is due more to a failure of the school to modify its practices than to the lacks or deficits of the children. Topics of chapters are understanding language development, stages of language acquisition, principles of language learning and cultural difference in language learning, measuring subcultural language differences, reconstructions, function words, and teaching children from lower socioeconomic groups. A bibliography and author and subject indexes conclude the book. (JM)