In many countries today it has become increasingly common for educational planners, administrators, and practitioners to more carefully attend to the needs of ethnic, class, caste, and other minority groups for increased access to and participation in schools. Schools are thought to be important institutions in this regard as they are perceived by subordinate groups as vehicles of social mobility. This paper presents a framework for analyzing school policies as they relate to societal integration in multiethnic societies. The framework points to two cultural and structural tendencies common to the integration process: homogenizing or centripetal and differentiating or centrifugal tendencies. These are apparent in the following examples of school policies: the control of educational decisions; access to schooling; how the early and later schooling experiences are articulated; the curricula; the selection and training of teachers; and the choice of language for instruction in the schools. This paper places the school policies, group tendencies, and societal integration mechanisms into a particular socio-cultural context by discussing four types of intergroup relations based on cultural and structural criteria. Using examples from various countries, based on these four types of intergroup relations, it is shown that overall societal tendencies are reflected in each nation's educational policies toward subordinate groups. (Author/RLV)