- Article discusses what graduates said about the impact of attending a desegregated high school on their understanding of race and on their lives in a racially diverse society.
- Graduates only came to understand what they learned from their high school experience after they left high school.
- Almost all of the graduates felt more prepared for a racially diverse society by attending a diverse high school.
- All said high school experience gave deeper understanding of other groups and greater comfort in interracial settings. Daily, lived experience of negotiating race could not be learned through curricula or student exchange programs.
- There were important differences across racial/ethnic groups in terms of what students learned about race and how it helped them as adults.
- Manywhite graduates say that they only realized how much more comfortable they were in diverse settings when they encountered racially mixed situations after high school with a friend or spouse who had attended predominately white schools.
- Like Whites, graduates of color we interviewed said that going to a desegregated high school prepared them for a diverse society in that they had a greater sense of comfort in interracial settings.