This study originated in 1968, when desegregation was being carried out mainly on a one-way basis, by busing minority pupils to predominantly white schools. Two of the districts studied, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Providence, Rhode Island, were then groping their way toward racial balance, primarily because of local pressures, and both had instituted some desegregation of black as well as white schools. The third district, the Sacramento City Unified School District, Sacramento, California, was resisting both racial balance and two-way desegregation when field work for this project began. Only early in 1972, when this research was ending, did the Sacramento district show signs of beginning to implement state racial balance requirements in its desegregation plans. The bulk of the research for this project was carried out under a contract to the Commission on Civil Rights. Most of the data were collected in the winter and spring of 1969 during field trips of approximately three weeks' duration to each of the districts. Field work included interviews with school district administrators, board members, principals, teachers, community leaders active in desegregation, parents, and students. School district records, organizational files, and newspaper accounts were examined. Local studies, reports, and position papers on desegregation were collected, and copies of court decisions, citizen complaints, public hearings, and legislation bearing on desegregation were studied. (Author/JM)