2001 - Suburban Racial Change and Suburban School Segregation, 1987-1995

Attribution: Reardon, Sean F., & Yun, John T.
Researchers: John T. YunSean F. Reardon
University Affiliation: Stanford University, Harvard University
Email: sean.reardon@stanford.edu
Research Question:
The relationship between growing minority enrollments in suburban schools and changes in segregation levels in suburban schools.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Sociology of Education
Journal Entry: Vo.. 74, No. 2, pp. 79-101
Year: 2001
Findings:
  • Increases in suburban enrollments shares of Black, Hispanics and Asian students were strongly and positively related to increases in suburban segregation levels.
  • Changes in Black segregation were predominantly related to changes in between-district (residential) suburban segregation, while changes in Hispanic and Asian segregation were related to a combination of between and within district segregation changes.
  • Association between racial composition and segregation is descriptive rather than causal, since it describes the association between concurrent patterns of change.
  • Suburban in-migration patterns are occurring in ways that tend to increase segregation.
Keywords: AsiansHispanicsLatinosResidential SegregationSegregationRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Fixed Effects Regression Models Sampling Frame:National
Sampling Types: RandomAnalysis Units: Metropolitan AreasData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • Data comes from Common Core of Data (National Center for Education Statistics 1996).
  • Data on racial enrollments in suburban public schools of 323 Metropolitan Statistical areas (MSA) for 5 school years 1987-1995.
  • 211 Black MSA
  • 174 Hispanic MSA
  • 153 Asian MSA
  • DV: Entropy Index (measure of segregation: how much less diverse individual schools are, on average, than their district as a whole).
  • Covariates: School year, proportion of enrollment in the suburbs made up of members of minority groups other than relevant groups, the natural logarithm of the number of suburban districts in MSA I at time t, etc. Also includes proportion of enrollment in the suburbs of MSA I made up of the relevant minority group at time t and the square of this term.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts