The monograph presents seven papers which challenge the extent to which experiential backgrounds are used in the context of the school's teaching-learning process. The first paper discusses mind sets, multi-cultural variants and mastery learning, maintaining that many minority students are victims of educational mind sets. Next, past and present research on how black children learn, and what can be done to educate them more effectively are discussed. The third paper addresses selected problems experienced by most Chicano children upon entering the school culture and presents several essential factors that, if used, will help teachers design educational approaches to better meet the needs of these students. The next paper discusses lifestyles of Native Americans from rural-reservation environments; compares achievement and intelligence potential of Native and non-Native American children; and maintains that there is a direct relationship between Native American culture and learning styles. The fifth paper suggests that differential learning styles are more related to economic status than to ethnic status and that the problems faced by poor whites are not related to learning styles per se. Working from Old World antecedents, Chinese values transformed and created on American shores are examined in the next paper. Two learning styles are distinguished from the characterological types that have emerged from these experiences: the heterodox (warrior) and the orthodox (victim). Finally, a schema for developing instructional units for diverse teaching-learning styles within multicultural classroom settings is given. (Author/NQ)