In this thesis, the classroom experience of Aboriginal children is examined closely, in an effort to identify exactly how the school is failing to cater adequately for the needs of this special group. Three strands of data informed the research. The first strand comprised phenomenological data gathered through interviewing and projective testing. The data revealed that Aboriginal children hold distinctive views on knowledge, school and academic work, the school generally being perceived as a ritual institution wherein knowledge is somehow sacramentally endowed upon those pupils who behave appropriately. The second line of research was quantitative in nature, directed at examining the Aboriginal children's effort when required to perform purposeful learning behaviours. A theory of purposeful learning behaviour, that which the special nature of classroom education demands, is developed. The third form of data derived from participant observation of actual classroom behaviour. It focused on the ways in which the Aboriginal children respond when teachers demand academic behaviour which they are incapable of, or unused to performing, and on the teachers responses to the children's constant failure to respond as desired.