This book presents the results of research on sociopsychological factors that affect the schooling process and academic achievement among young children. The first chapter of the report provides a background on schooling, and reviews what is known and what remains to be discovered about academic achievement. Chapters 2 and 3 review research on psychological and sociological influences on schooling. Chapter 4 presents a heuristic model depicting the relationships among individual factors, cultural variables, school factors, and parent, peer, teacher, and pupil expectations that interact with academic achievement. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 describe variables used in the model and demonstrate the statistical application of the model to data on first to third graders in a white, middle-class urban school; an urban, integrated, lower-class school; and an urban, black, lower-class school. Findings suggest that: (1) intelligence, more than children's expectations, affects marks in the two lower-class schools; (2) socioeconomic status, more than race, determines achievement differences between schools; (3) children's and parents' expectations affect marks in the middle-class school; and (4) conduct affects the early schooling process. Chapter 8 interprets the model in the context of the early schooling process. (Author/MJL)