2005 - Does Exposure to Whites Help Blacks in the Long Run? Labor-Market Consequences of High School Racial Composition

Attribution: Gamoran, Adam, Collares, Ana Cristina, & Barfels, Sarah
Researchers: Adam GamoranAna Cristina CollaresSarah Barfels
University Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Email: gamoran@ssc.wisc.edu
Research Question:
Assess labor-market consequences of high school racial composition.
Published: 0
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Paper Presented at the ASAPhiladelphia
Journal Entry: August
Year: 2005
Findings:
  • African American and other minority students who enrolled in high schools with higher proportions of White students tend to work in environments with more persons from dissimilar racial backgrounds.
  • White students who attended schools with lower proportion Whites found themselves in less White-dominated workplaces – a perpetuation of racial mixing for Whites as well.
  • While busing as a social policy may have helped African Americans find their ways to racially mixed workplaces, it did not appear to have this salutary effect for Whites.
  • Racially mixed high schools may contribute modestly to racially mixed workplaces, but their power to promote economic inequality seems limited at best.
  • Students’ experiences of a school’s racial environment may not be as simple as tallying the school’s composition.
  • School racial composition is unrelated to attainment of educational or occupational status, employment, or annual earnings.
  • Find some support for perpetuation theory, but desegregation does not appear to be a powerful approach to promoting an integrated society.
Keywords: DesegregationDiversityHigh SchoolLabor MarketLong Term OutcomesNon Academic OutcomesOccupational OutcomesOutcomesPerpetuation TheoryRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: SurveyAnalysis Methods: Multilevel Models Sampling Frame:National
Sampling Types: RandomAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Panel Data
Data Description:
  • National Longitudinal Studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. High School & Beyond (HSB) interviews students in 1980 and follows them in 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1992.
  • The National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS) followed up 15,000 students in 1992, 1994, and 2000.
  • Analyze results for three sample of students: 1) HSB 1980 tenth graders, followed up in 1992; NELS 1990 tenth graders, followed up in 2000; and NELS 1988 eight graders, followed up in 2000.
  • DV: Educational attainment, occupational status, annual earnings, percentage of people in your present workplace of your same race and ethnicity.
  • IV: School level (proportion of white students in school, racial conflict, region of the country, private versus public, etc.), student-level (race, SES, race relations).
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts