- Findings offer support for perpetuation theory which suggests that early school segregation leads to segregation across the life course and across institutional contexts.
- Findings point to school segregation’s intergenerational consequences and are consistent with the results of Crain’s classic studies using Office of Civil Rights data which laid the foundation for later research on the long-term effects of desegregation.
- Early neighborhood isolation is strongly associated with young adult’s preference for same race neighbors. The effect is strongest among African Americans, followed by Whites, Latinos, and Asians, respectively.
- Students who attended more racially isolated elementary, middle, and high schools are more likely as young adults to prefer having same race neighbors.
- Including school and community context variables, early neighborhood isolation remains strongly associated with young adult preference for same race neighbors only among Asians and African Americans.
- In essence, results suggest that, while both matter, social isolation in schools plays a more significant role, than neighborhood isolation, in diminishing social cohesion among young adults.
- Asians who experience early neighborhood isolation are more likely to feel social distance from Whites, and to prefer having same race neighbors than their co-ethnics who experience greater diversity in the neighborhoods in which they grew up. Similarly, African Americans who experience early neighborhood isolation are more likely to prefer having same race neighbors, and to prefer that their children have same race schoolmates than their African Americans who experience greater diversity in the neighborhoods in which they grew up.
- In contrast, when school segregation and other factors are taken into account, we find no significant net effects of early neighborhood segregation among Whites or Latinos.
- The overall findings relating social isolation in K-12 schooling and young adults feelings of social distance, as well as preference for same race neighbors offer further support for perpetuation theory which suggests that early school segregation leads to segregation across the life course and across institutional contexts.