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2005 - How Desegregation Changed Us: The Effects of Racially Mixed Schools on Students and Society

Attribution: Wells, Amy Stuart, Holme, Jennifer, Revilla, Anita, Tijerina, & Atanda, Awo Korantemaa
Researchers: Amy Stuart WellsAnita RevillaAtanda TijerinaAwo KorantemaaJennifer Holme
University Affiliation: Columbia University
Email: asw86@columbia.edu
Research Question:
Ideas of graduates, educators, advocates and local policy makers who were directly involved in racially mixed public high schools 25 years ago.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Harvard University Press
Journal Entry: In Search of Brown
Year: 2005
Findings:
  • Desegregation fundamentally changed the people who lived through it, yet had a more limited impact on the larger society.
  • Desegregation made the vast majority of students who attended these schools less racially prejudiced and more comfortable around people of different backgrounds.
  • Recommendations:
    • 1) Broaden measures of school quality and accountability to include other indicators such as racial diversity
    • 2) Amend current public school choice policies, to make then more supportive of people who want racial diversity.
    • 3) Increase support for school districts that are trying to maintain desegregated schools.
    • 4) Pursue non-education goals such as housing integration and suburb identification to facilitate the creation of more diverse public schools.
Keywords: CollegeDesegregationDiversityLabor MarketLong Term OutcomesPrejudiceRacial CompositionMethodologies: QualitativeAnalysis Methods: Qualitative Techniques Sampling Frame:Graduates class of 1980
Sampling Types: NonrandomAnalysis Units: StudentData Types: Qualitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • Chose to study the history of six high schools and the members of the Class of ’80 who attended them during the late 1970s because this era was the beginning of the peak in American school desegregation.
  • Data collection occurred in three overlapping stages: 1999-2001, 2000-2002, 2002-2003 540 interviews = 268 graduate interviews (242 initial, 26 portrait interviews).
  • Open ended interviews with policy makers, activists, school officials, lawyers, educators and graduates.
  • Collected also yearbooks, newspaper clips, district documents and historical documents in libraries.
  • Austin High School / Dwight Morrow High School / John Muir High School / Shaker Heights High School/ Topeka High School / West Charlotte high School
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts
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