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HAROLD B. GERARD AND NORMAN MILLER In the fall of 1965, when the school board of the Riverside Unified School District made its momentous decision to desegregate the ele mentary schools in Riverside, both of us were faculty members in the psychology department on the Riverside campus of the University of California. The riots in Watts had occurred the previous August and the shock waves were being felt around the cou~try. Although the black population of Riverside at the time was only 6% or 7%, people were ap prehensive. A story appeared in the local paper, The Rzverside Press Enterprzse, about several Blacks who were watching the burning and looting in Watts on TV. One of them, excited by what he saw, ex claimed, "Man-let's burn here, too. " The others in the bar were more level-headed and fortunately dissuaded him from following his impulse. Barely two weeks later, however, someone set fire to one of the build ings of Lowell School, in the eastside ghetto area. Nothing was left of the building but a charred shell. People in Riverside, of all ethnic groups, were generally edgy in the face of a seemingly volatile situation. Agitation by minority parents for improved education for their children seemed to be reinforced by the general unrest.
This book is written for the Millennial Generation to educate them about what school desegregation was actually about—the struggle over white domination in the United States. The textbooks they read as high school students describe the heroic efforts of African Americans to achieve civil rights but do not describe who was denying them these rights—white Americans. The oral histories in this book reveal how individuals navigated efforts to achieve educational equity amidst efforts to reassert white domination. These accounts counter the textbook history the Millennial Generation read which omits the massive white resistance to school desegregation, the various ways whites used subterfuge to slow down and redirect school desegregation in what would more benefit whites, and the concerted white political backlash that has been ensconced in educational policy and reform beginning with A Nation at Risk and continuing in No Child Left Behind. That is, educational policy as we know it is all about asserting white domination and not about educating children, and thus the Millennial Generation is faced with undoing what their parents and grandparents have done.
The desegregation situation is the keynote theme of the following chapters. I Each of them touches on a different dimension of the situation: the historical, the temporal, the spatial. But the reader, perusing the essays with the situation in mind, should remember that the desegregation situation should not be inter preted literally. Authorities and adults certainly, school-age children probably, are influenced by their awareness of a sequence of past and future situations. Some may even operate with William James's (1890, p. 608) notion of "the specious present" that "has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming," thus reducing the potency of the present situation. Others may be dancing to a slower tempo of change, thus becoming more responsive to the present situation. Whatever the perceived tempo, many must share the view that the future may reverse the direction of the past. Some may see that new future direction as unswerving, unending, or long-lasting; others may see it as short-lived. And it is through attention to the phenomenological description of desegregation that these issues can be explored; a theme that is considered in several of the following chapters.
This paper examines the racial attitudes of 5,770 black and white Georgia high school students, comparing the attitudes of students in desegregated and segregated schools. It was found that generally positive racial attitudes exist among all groups of students. On all but one question used in the racial attitudes scale at least 60 percent of the students gave tolerant responses; on seven of eight questions, fewer than 14 percent gave responses indicating prejudice. In light of the Georgia tradition of white supremacy it was surprising to find segregated whites much more tolerant than desegregated ones; these apparently stem from a general improvement in racial attitudes that may be occurring throughout the South. Findings of this report support the following general conclusions: (1) white females are more tolerant than white males; (2) whites with white collar fathers are more tolerant; (3) whites with good grades are more tolerant; (4) for both blacks and whites, students in desegregated urban schools are more tolerant than students attending rural schools; and (5) blacks are generally more tolerant than whites. In desegregated schools, younger students are significantly less tolerant than older ones. White intolerance did not increase in schools with higher proportions of blacks. Interracial contact and cross-racial friendships were found to be the strongest correlates of racial tolerance. Data are presented on 11 tables. A six-page list of references is included. (Bjv).
Specialists in the field of education, ethnic studies, and law, synthesize recent research on the desegregation process and outline relatively inexpensive steps for maximizing both educational equity and excellence. The contributors examine issues vital to decision making by judges, policy makers, educators, and parents of schoolchildren. Strategies for addressing the challenges of desegregation are suggested, and critical issues that require resolution for future policy and practices are identified.