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The nature and specification of goals in teaching a group of concepts affect the type and quality of learning. What is learned is learned as a means to some end. Feedback from end to means regulates learning a given activity. The task or goal structure provided by the environment may play its most important role early in life and gradually decline in importance. When the goal structure of the environment (its means-end relationships) is out of kilter, many of the intellectual phenomena labeled cultural deprivation result. Although people may fail to realize goals, the environment may fail to provide a growth-promoting sequence of them. The goals set for the child by his caretakers and the relation of these to the child's available means is a critical factor in determining the rate of cognitive growth in the early formative years. The problem of maintaining compensatory educational gains may thus be the absence of an adequate goal structure; no amount of past "catching up" is going to affect the course of present or future learning. Further, school learning is characteristically separate from any immediate goal, thus provoking the issue of "relevance." (JM)

SPEAKING AN ORAL LANGUAGE AND SPEAKING A WRITTEN LANGUAGE INVOLVE DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE USE WHICH ARE IN TURN RELATED TO DIFFERENT EDUCATIONAL METHODS AND DIFFERENT COURSES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT. BECAUSE ORAL SPEECH RELIES ON CONTEXT FOR COMMUNICATION, A COMMON CONTEXT AND POINT OF VIEW IS ASSUMED BY THE SPEAKER TO EXIST BETWEEN THE LISTENER AND HIMSELF, AND HIS SPEECH IS ATTACHED TO CONTEXT-DEPENDENT THOUGHT. IN ORAL CULTURES, EDUCATION IS ACCOMPLISHED BY THE CHILD'S LEARNING TO IMITATE, USING CONCRETE OBJECTS IN CONCRETE ACTIVITIES. IN A WRITTEN LANGUAGE CULTURE, WHERE KNOWLEDGE EXCEEDS THE AMOUNT WHICH ANY 1 INDIVIDUAL CAN KNOW, ABSTRACT THINKING IS ENCOURAGED, WITH EMPHASIS ON THE ABILITY TO GENERALIZE AND TO MANIPULATE SYMBOLS. IN EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED WITH THE WOLOF CHILDREN IN SENEGAL IT WAS DEMONSTRATED THAT LANGUAGE USE RATHER THAN LANGUAGE STRUCTURE DETERMINES COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT. IT WAS FOUND THAT WOLOF SCHOOL CHILDREN TAUGHT IN FRENCH NONETHELESS CHANGED THEIR USE OF WOLOF IN A CONCEPT-FORMATION SITUATION SO THAT IN FUNCTIONAL TERMS WOLOF BECAME MORE "WRITTEN." UNITED STATES NEGRO LOWER CLASS CHILDREN HAVE BEEN FOUND TO HAVE THE SAME OBJECT-CONTEXT ORIENTATION FOUND IN ORAL CULTURES AND HAVE SIMILARLY IMPROVED IN ABSTRACT THINKING ABILITY WHEN GIVEN TRAINING. INCREASED STUDY OF AFRICAN SUBCULTURES MAY LEND DIRECTION TO AMERICAN SUBCULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. THIS PAPER WAS PRESENTED AT THE SYMPOSIUM ON CROSS-CULTURAL COGNITIVE STUDIES, AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION (CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 9, 1968). (MS)