In 1978 the Springfield, Massachusetts school system began using sociometric techniques to analyze classroom social structure in grades 3-6 in order to provide feedback to teachers and data for evaluating the progress of integration. The sociogram asked students to choose whom they would work with on a school project, eat lunch with, pair up with…

These conference proceedings are separated into three areas: (1) presentations by individuals who have played important roles in desegregation; (2) presentations on contemporary issues; and (3) the continuing challenge of providing equal educational opportunity to all. Among the topics included in the first section are the social and legal history…

Investigated the relative cognitive impacts on black students' attendance at historically black colleges versus predominantly white colleges. Using numerous data types, found that black students attending black colleges did as well or better than their counterparts at the white institutions on standardized measures of writing skills and science…

Presents a history of the social, educational, and legal events leading up to Brown v Board of Education. It also provides a comprehensive review of major Supreme Court rulings on desegregation and equal education opportunity for African Americans in the 40 years since Brown. (GR)

Illustrates the use of baseball cards as cultural artifacts and how to make sociological inferences and historical generalizations from them. Focuses on Black players and the issue of racial integration in major league baseball. Includes chronologies of racial integration on teams and inductions of Black players into the Baseball Hall of Fame. (NL)

The movement of the black population from rural to urban areas increased the potential for integration by ending the isolation of blacks on farms in the rural South. But that isolation has been replaced by a new form of segregation. Black metropolitan growth has been concentrated in the central cities accommodated by the expansion of urban ghettos…

THE SCHOOLS OFFER THE GREATEST PROMISE FOR ACHIEVING RACIAL INTEGRATION IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. ALTHOUGH IT IS WRONG TO ARGUE THAT NO NEGRO SCHOOL IS GOOD UNLESS WHITE CHILDREN ARE BROUGHT INTO IT, THE FACT IS THAT SEGREGATED SCHOOLS DO PRODUCE A NEGATIVE SELF-IMAGE AND LOW MOTIVATION. COORECTIVE EFFORTS TO BALANCE THE SCHOOL RACIALLY MUST NOT BE…

The Racial Attitudes and Perceptions Survey (RAPS) was developed to obtain information from black and white military personnel, including reports of the frequencies of specific discriminatory behaviors and the tension levels associated with each race. The instrument was evaluated in terms of its construct validity and its reliability. Attitudes…

An estimated 36 million Americans--or 19 percent of the population--lived in racially integrated neighborhoods in the spring of 1967. Yet, the number of Negroes living in such neighborhoods tended to be small in comparison with the number of whites. The research operations for this study, which began in the autumn of 1966, were divided into three…

The authors concern themselves primarily with 2 effects of a school desegregation plan during the semester of its inception in Gainesville, Florida. One deals with the amount of interaction between blacks and whites on the school grounds; the other concerns their attitudes toward each other. Interaction was measured, through observation during the…

Examines the intentions and results of school desegregation since Brown v Board of Education. Concludes that desegregation has had a greater impact on the White population than on the Black population, and that the self-concepts of both racial populations have benefitted. (FMW)

Discusses the history of school desegregation efforts in Chicago from the 1964 Civil Rights Act to the present. Suggests that the concept of "uniform incorporation" of all citizens in society is being replaced by the goal of "egalitarian pluralism" (Pierre van den Berghe's categories) by Chicago's Black and Hispanic leaders.…

On the basis of interviews with teachers in newly integrated South African schools, this article argues that the emerging form of multicultural education is characterized by a compromised critique: teachers encourage criticism of what is historically removed from South Africa but manifest an attitude of compliance with that which is immediate and…

Discusses the implementation of desegregation since Brown v Board of Education, focusing on the practical difficulties and promises associated with helping to make desegregation a reality from its beginnings to today's focus on achieving unitary status in formerly segregated school systems. Discussions include issues of freedom of choice, student…

Reviews the Henry Louis Gates Jr. memoir, "Colored People," and Julius Lester's novel of the civil rights movement, "And All Our Wounds Forgiven." Discovers a number of salient points concerning the black experience of integration in both books. Considers some of the interesting questions raised and their possible use in class…