2010 - Race and Cultural Flexibility Among Students in Different Multiracial Schools

Attribution: Carter, Prudence
Researchers: Prudence Carter
University Affiliation: Stanford University
Email: plcarter@stanford.edu
Research Question:
Examine the difference in cultural flexibility between black and white students enrolled in schools with different racial and ethnic compositions.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Teacher College Record
Journal Entry: Vol. 112, No. 6, pp. 1529-1574
Year: 2010
Findings:
  • There are significant associations among self-esteem, academic and extracurricular placement, and cultural flexibility for black students.
  • Black students in majority-minority schools scored significantly higher on cultural flexibility scale than those in majority-White schools.
  • There are connections between student and school behaviors as they pertain to both students’ and educators’ willingness and ability to realize the visions of racial and ethnic integration wholly.
  • There exist some significant differences in students’ cultural flexibility based on where they are in school, in either a majority-minority or majority-White school. Students attending a majority racial and ethnic minority schools are more likely to have higher cultural flexibility.
  • Those Black students enrolled in either AP or honors courses show a modest though greater level of cultural flexibility than those enrolled in non-AP and non-honors classes.
  • Black students’ preferential attitudes about the racial and ethnic composition of their schools and neighborhoods have no influence on their cultural flexibility.
  • For White students, the school type does not matter. Their preferential attitudes about their schools’ and neighborhoods’ racial , ethnic, and class composition do not matter either. The statistically significant predictors of cultural flexibility found among this group were participation in AP or honors courses and regional location.
Keywords: CompositionRacial CompositionTrackingMethodologies: MixedResearch Designs: SurveyAnalysis Methods: Qualitative Techniques Sampling Frame:4 high schools
Sampling Types: RandomAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Mixed-Cross Sectional
Data Description:
  • Randomly stratified sample of 471 Black and White students.
  • Ethnographic notes from weeks of school observations and transcribed interviews data from 16 group interviews conducted in each school with students in Grades 9-12 complemented the survey.
  • Methods also include ethnography and in-depth interviews.
  • 4 high schools : two located in the metropolitan area of a southern capital city, and two in a northeast capital city.
  • One school in each city is minority-dominant, and one is multiracial and predominantly White.
  • DV: Cultural flexibility
  • IV: Mother/female guardian’s or father/male guardian’s highest level of education, gender, self reported GPA, school compositional type (majority-minority and majority-white, self-esteem, preference for same-race peers in school, preference for same race in neighborhood, preference for same-SES peers in school, preference for same-SES in neighborhood, student’s grade point average, in AP or honors courses, number of extracurricular activities, family background
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts