ABSTRACT
Achieving effective cross-cultural education requires attention to issues of cultural form and process and to their translation into classroom practices compatible with both the culture of the children and the culture of the school. This chapter presents an instance in which this kind of mutually compatible translation took place in a classroom for children of Hawaiian ancestry and culture. The authors were involved in the development of an adapted classroom feature which made these aspects of the natal culture and the school culture more compatible for Hawaiian children. The promotion of trust and regard among class members and between students and teacher, which is so well served in the Hawaiian case by the Open Door adaptation, is a necessary part of making minority education programs effective, but it is not, by itself, sufficient to do so. In the field test classroom where the Open Door feature was developed, scores on standardized tests of reading achievement were above national norm level.
