School Racial Composition Effects on Avoidance, Separatism, and Integrationist Attitudes of Adolescents

Abstract

Support for integration versus separatism and approach versus avoldance reactions among junior and senior high school students was examined in integrated and segregated schools. Two surveys of a panel of black and white students in selected Milwaukee public schools were conducted in the spring of 1974 and the spring of 1975. The approach-avoidance and integration-separatism dimensions emerged from a factor analysis of racial attitude items. Black students in all-black schools scored more on the avoidance end of the approach-avoidance dimension while the black students in the integrated schools scored more on the approach end. The black students in the all-black schools, however, tended to score on the integration end of the integration-separatism dimension while the black students in the integrated schools tended to score on the separatism end. The attitudes of the students in the all-black schools changed towards those in the integrated school during the year between interviews. Reasons for the changes are suggested and partially tested with additional analysis. White students in essentially all-white schools scored on the avoidance and separatism end of the two dimensions. White students in mixed Latin schools were more acceptant of the minority students than the white students in the mixed black schools.