Does Busing Improve the Racial Interactions of Children?

Abstract

racial interaction and friendship. The assumption has been that academic achievement of black children in bi-racial schools would be highest in integrated settings. This assumption grew out of a decade of esearch by Irwin Katz (1964, 1969, a, b) studying black performance in bi-racial situations. Coleman (1966) studied this phenomenon in the Equal Educational Opportunity Survey, as did Cohen, Pettigrew, Riley (1972), and Armor (1972). These studies have typically involved regressing schools' racial climates on schools' average achievement, rather than direct measures of within school friendship choices. W ile broadscale surveys are useful to produce general overviews, more spe ific detailed probing is necessary if we are to understand whether children of different races interact with one another; and if so, what the effects are of such interactions. The study that follows is an example of the kind of specific inquiry we are advocating. The basic question in this study is: do children in bi-racial elementary schools interact across racial lines and develop friendships with one another.