We outline a theory of cultural transmission in socio-cultural minorities in a foreign cultural environment. The explanatory focus of the theory is on the educational activities of minorities and on the educational policies of the majority towards them. The theory comprises two components referring to, respectively, the proximate psychological mechanisms and the distal cultural–evolutionary processes that underlie minority– majority interactions. The first theory component is an action–theoretical model of the interaction between majorities and minorities in the educational domain. A central assumption of this model is that socio-cultural groups have a culture-transmission motive, i.e. a desire to maintain and transmit their culture. The second component of the theory consists of a set of assumptions about the evolution of socio-cultural groups that provides an enhanced understanding of the basic goals and strategies of minorities and majorities in cultural-transmission situations. It is argued that the theory allows an explanation of several findings that pose difficulties to existing theories, in particular, the frequently observed stability of cultural traits in ethnic minorities.
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