1. How do deficit, expectation, and cultural difference theories explain disparate academic performance among various racial, ethnic, and cultural groups?
Deficit, expectation, and cultural difference theories offer different explanations that can help Americans to "see" the invisible privileges that they enjoy.

2. What major developments have marked the educational history of Native Americans, Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Arab Americans?
Despite a national commitment to educate all citizens, bias and discrimination characterize the histories of many of ethnic and racial groups. Native Americans have seen their culture attacked through forced schooling practices. The doctrine of "separate but equal" (Plessey v. Ferguson) legalized the segregation of African Americans, found illegal in 1954, but de facto resegregation has once again separated black and white. Hispanics (or Latinos) are now the largest minority group in the United States. Asian is a broad label assigned to several billion people from a score of nations, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are a rapidly growing population. Students from China and India are stereotyped as model minorities, a label that often masks the impact of prejudice on these children. Many Americans confuse Arabs and Moslems, mistaking Islam, a religion, with Arabs, a cultural group.

3. What educational barriers and breakthroughs have girls and women experienced?
For much of this nation's history, females were denied access to or segregated within schools. Researchers continue to find subtle bias in classroom interactions, curriculum materials, and enrollment patterns.

4. What classroom strategies are appropriate for teaching culturally diverse learners?
Teachers can create more equitable classrooms through a variety of instructional techniques: ensuring that seating and grouping patterns are not segregated by gender, race or language, varying learning activities, increasing wait-time, using space and eye contact in a culturally sensitive manner, and using materials to meet individual student needs and interests.

5. Are America's schools a secret success story, doing better than the press and the public believe?
Many indicators, from SAT scores to high school graduation rates, reflect an improvement in American schools. According to Berliner and Biddle, school bashing reflects an old tradition of journalists and a po pular activity of today's politicians. Despite all this, America's schools may be doing far better than we realize.