This volume presents an overview of current anthropological thinking on the education of minority students, bringing the perspectives of educational anthropology to bear on understanding minority education and resolving its inequities. At the core of the book are some papers from an invited session of the American Anthropological Association in 1985, supplemented by other discussions from the same area. The following chapters are included: (1) "Understanding Minority Education: Framing the Issues" (Evelyn Jacob and Cathie Jordan); (2) "Understanding Educational Anthrology: Concepts and Methods" (Evelyn Jacob and Cathie Jordan); (3) "Transformation and School Success: The Politics and Culture of Educational Achievement" (Frederick Erikson); (4) "Explaining School Failure, Producing School Success: Two Cases" (Lynn A. Vogt, Cathie Jordan, and Roland G. Tharp); (5) "Change as the Goal of Educational Research" (Luis C. Moll and Stephen Diaz); (6) "Variability in Minority School Performance: A Problem in Search of an Explanation" (John U. Obgul); (7) "The School Performance of Immigrant Minorities: A Comparative View" (Margaret A. Gibson); (8) "'Becoming Somebody': Central American Immigrants in U.S. Inner-City Schools" (Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco); (9) "Building Our House from the Rubbish Tree: Minority-Directed Education" (Barbara Harrison); (10) "Constructing Cultural Differences and Educational Achievement in Schools" (Margaret A. Eisenhart and M. Elizabeth Graue); (11) "Resistance and Compliance in Minority Classrooms" (John D'Amato); (12) "Failure's Failure" (Perry Gilmore, Shelley Goldman, Ray McDermott, and David Smith); (13) "Ethnography and Policy: A Catalytic Combination for Change" (David Fetterman); and (14) "Ethnographic Intervention: Applying Anthropology To Affect Educational Practice" (Cathie Jordan and Evelyn Jacob). References follow each chapter. (SLD)