Cultural dominance of middle-class norms prevail in middle-class schools with a teacher teaching toward those standards and with students striving to maintain those standards.
As an example, one of the schools I have been studying is too small to compete effectively in most sports, but participates with vigor each year in the state music contests.
A child's learning is a function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher.
The present structure of rewards in high schools produces a response on the part of an adolescent social system which effectively impedes the process of education.