THE CURRENT TREND among leading school authorities is to regard the separate uni-ethnic schools as disadvantaged schools no matter how excellent their programs, and to regard ethnic integration as a major step forward in the education of minority-group children. Evidence has been compiled by several major studies which indicates, for example, that Negro children, on the average, achieve better in integrated schools than in segregated schools. There is, however, nothing inherently bad about uni-ethnic schools in a homogeneous country as regards formal academic achievement. The majority of schools the world over are homogeneous schools, in the sense of drawing their students from a single language group, nationality, or ethnic population; many such schools quite obviously have not been disadvantaged in a formal academic sense. Indeed, an argument could be made that uni-ethnic schools fail to acquaint pupils with youths of other backgrounds and, therefore, contribute to narrow nationalism, ethnocentrism and chauvinism (and ultimately to international hostility, misunderstanding, and warfare). This argument, in no way, renders uni-ethnic schools per se academically unsound. While it is true that we live in an age of global interaction and on the threshold, perhaps, of international unity, our major socio-ethnic units, or nationalities, are still very much in the grip of ancient anticosmopolitan ideals. Nationalities almost always have sought to indoctrinate their youth in patriotism, i.e., loyalty to the ethnic unit, or nation-state, and part of this process of enculturation has consisted in an attempt to draw a rather sharp line between one's own people, and foreigners or outsiders. It is likely, then, that uni-ethnic schools will continue to be highly esteemed, not so much for their educational value as for their ability to maintain youth within a system of national and group loyalties. This whole matter becomes more complex, of course, when schools within the boundaries of a heterogeneous political unit (such as the United States) are discussed. The United States is a state (a sovereign political unit), but it is not yet a nation (a single nationality or ethnic unit). It has always been a multi-ethnic state dominated by one group, the English-speaking white
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