Improve Race Relations Research Articles

From ideas to market applications: dynamics of knowledge transfer and the role of champions

Technology transfer is a significant effort of the federal government and the intent of this effort is to transfer technologies developed in federal laboratories to the private sector for commercial use. The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer is a clearing-house for technologies developed through federal research laboratories. In addition, universities and other institutions use various mechanisms for transferring the technologies or knowledge to the private sector for civilian use. In this paper, the transfer of experimental and conceptual knowledge from research environment to civilian sector, covering aspects of engineering and social science is emphasized. The engineering examples deal with alleviating the nitrate pollution of rural domestic wells (a conceptual knowledge) and phytoremediation of hazardous wastes (an experimental knowledge). The social science examples deal with a culture assimilator for improving race relations (a conceptual knowledge) and a multimedia assimilator for global managers (an experimental knowledge). In each case, mechanisms and shortcomings involved in transfer-ring the knowledge for civilian use are demonstrated. We present a framework for knowledge transfer, and discuss the role of champions in knowledge transfer. We take the position that, though the attributes of the technology itself are important, knowledge transfer does require champions.

Leadership on Race in a Changing Suburban High School

Educational leaders face significant obstacles when attempting to work on race relations in schools. This article describes the response of one suburban high school to its changing racial composition. The perspectives of several key leaders are presented, and three key leadership events are examined. An analysis of these events using embedded intergroup relations theory reveals that the high school and the community were unable to authorize key members to do the work of improving race relations. Furthermore, significant boundary problems, such as central office intrusion and the absence of key members of the high school community, weakened the efforts of concerned staff. The study suggests that the application of embedded intergroup relations theory to race relations in schools improves the likelihood of successful research and consultations.

Policy as the Transformation of Intentions: Making Multicultural Education Policy

This qualitative policy study applies an interactionist framework for policy analysis, especially the concept of intentions, to an examination of the construction of multicultural education policy in a midwestern U.S. school district. Intentions-purposes and goals meant to shape the behavior of actors in the future and at other sites-motivate actors to act in the policy arena, to use policy as a vehicle for realizing their purposes. Initiated in response to a racial conflict in a high school, the policy process entailed the school board's creation of a committee including many African American community members to generate recommendations for improving race relations. During the process, the school board's intentions, and those of many community members, were transformed due to the administration's reinforcement of district conventions and power structures. Race relations became multicultural issues. Community members who misconstrued the process as granting them real policy-making authority were most disappointed with the outcomes.

Carnivals, Carnival, and Carnivalization, or How to Make a Living without Actually Working

A certain critic of mine, who shall be nameless, is quoted as having remarked that Crowley doesn't know Bakhtin (the Russian philosopher and sociolinguist) from Bactine, disinfectant. Following paradigm of man who didn't know shit from Shinola, and whose shoes as a result were quite a mess, it can be said that this address may be theoretically naive, but at least it will be clean, even antiseptic, and perhaps just a bit slick. But before I face up to august subject of this swan-song, I hope you will indulge me in a little autobiographical survey, to explain how I got here. My critic was right in pointing out that theory has not been my forte during my professional career now stretching back over four decades. Not only am I a self-confessed Boasian particularist-there are not too many alive who can say that-chary of supracultural generalizations, but far worse, I am much too much in love with my field data for its own sake to care too much what it all might MEAN - if anything. This fascination with cultural variety in our world is quite simply the fire in my furnace, and easier to understand when you realize that I was born in that doyen of American cities, Peoria, Illinois, grandchild of Irish and Alsatian-- French migrants, son of a surprisingly successful plumbing contractor, a whitecollar kid in quintessential bluecollar town. Having access to The National Geographic and a public library, I soon realized that there had to be better places for me than Peoria, and my subsequent career can be seen as a long hard struggle to get away from there and to stay away. This explains my exotic Trinidadian East Indian wife, focus on such obscure areas (in '40s anyway) as Africa and Caribbean, and concentration on such arcane subjects as narrative and festival. Eschewing Peoria-favored Notre Dame, I got an A.B. in Design at Protestant Northwestern in `43, getting my fill of opera, symphony, and museums, and after having signed on as a 90 day wonder two months after Pearl Harbor, I got my Ensign's Commission soon after. My ship, an aged ex-cruise liner, USS American Legion, known aboard as the AL Maru, Japanese Secret Weapon, carried on training operations for landing barge crews on San Clemente Island near Catalina. While considerably better than being shot at, those barges were unstable and dangerous, so I soon transferred to Communications, and spent rest of war over an early version of a computer coding and decoding secret messages. While decommissioning ship, I somehow contracted polio, and at age 24 found myself a partial quadriplegic with very limited use of my arms and legs. To their credit, Navy and VA came through with a stay at Warm Springs (which had a Navy unit founded by Roosevelt), a car, wheelchairs, help toward building a wheelchair house, legbraces, all other gear, money for education, and later an ample pension (which helped pay for all that travel). So when you pay your high taxes, remember that you know someone who gets some of it back! Indeed, because they put some thought and money into me, I too became employable and have paid taxes all these years. With help of my parents and some other wise people, I came to realize that if I were going to have a life, I would have to get out of back bedroom and find a way to make a living. As a semi-basket-case, I realized that all I could do was talk, but what to talk about that somebody might pay me for? My VA pension gave me insouciance to choose something I thought needed doing, i.e., improving race relations by rehabilitating image of African and New World African societies in eyes of both African and non-African. After an MA in Art History and two years teaching at Bradley in Peoria, a university famous primarily for basketball scandals, I went to see Herskovits and Bascom back at Northwestern to ask where I could find an Art History program that covered African art. …

Guest Commentary: Which Way Do We Go?: Leading for Diversity in the New Frontier

The Leading for Diversity Project research described in this collection of articles is a very ambitious and impressive project, the goal of which is to identify and describe models of proactive leadership in schools that serve to improve race relations among young people. I read these papers with great interest, not only because I am a psychologist who has been teaching courses on the psychology of racism for many years, but because I am now a college administrator. In my role as dean at Mount Holyoke College, I am directly engaged in the challenge of creating an educational environment that will prepare all of our students-students of color as well as White students-for the 21st century. Yet, since assuming this role I have often asked myself: does such preparation require of educators? The young people we teachers are teaching today are on the verge of entering a new frontier. Certainly within the context of the United States, the demographic portrait of society is changing rapidly. Young people face a much more racially, ethnically, and religiously pluralistic environment than ever before, one that is far more pluralistic than that experienced by most of today's teachers in their own youth. Though we teachers are naturally inclined to teach in the ways we were ourselves taught, relying on the lessons of the past will not necessarily take us where we want to go today. Some time ago, this reality was vividly symbolized for me in a dream. In the dream, I was driving a car along a road, when all of a sudden the car swerved off the road and landed on top of a pile of rocks. I said in surprise, What happened to the road? From somewhere, a voice answered, There is no road. When I woke up, I realized that my dream was a perfect metaphor for the challenge facing today's teachers. We are living in a time when there is no dear road leading to where we are trying to go. Many of us, however, have a clear vision of where we would like to be. We see schools in which all students have both the opportunities and the encouragement to achieve high standards. We envision multiethnic educational communities characterized by equitable and just group relations rather than the deeply ingrained power hierarchies of the present era, which systematically advantage some and disadvantage others. We view education as not only fostering intellectual development by providing all students with the tools of critical fl-thinking, speaking, writing, and quantitative reasoning, but also as providing students with the skills and experiences necessary for effective participation in a diverse society. do school leaders need to do to create such environments? The five articles assembled here collectively address this central question, providing the beginnings of a much-needed road map. That map points to three central markers highlighting the need for educators and educational institutions to affirm students' identities, build a sense of community amid educational institutions, and cultivate leadership among our youth. The first marker is a complex one, shaped by individual characteristics, family dynamics, historical factors, and social and political contexts. It involves such questions as: Who am I? Who do my parents say that I am? Who do my peers say that I am? message is reflected back to me in the faces and voices of my teachers, my neighbors, the clerks in my neighborhood stores? do I learn from the media about myself? How am I represented in the cultural images around me, or am I missing from the picture altogether? The answers to these questions depend largely on what the world around each student says about him or her. As social scientist Charles Cooley (1922) pointed out long ago, other people are the mirror in which we see ourselves. To create effective learning environments, we educators must begin by asking just what images are being reflected in the mirror of our institutions. Does that reflection affirm the identities of all our students or just a few? …

Racial Reconciliation

The author argues that religious groups may offer the best hope for improving race relations in this country. The author contends that evangelical approaches to racial reconciliation have important advantages over secular approaches such as multiculturalism or conflict resolution theory. Importantly, the possibility of collective apology among religious groups, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Promise Keepers, surpasses that of secular groups, particularly government, as the controversy surrounding President Clinton's proposed national apology to the Black community demonstrates.

Next Steps: Charles S. Johnson and Southern Liberalism

Charles Spurgeon Johnson would never forget childhood affront. Born July 24, 1893, he grew up in Bristol, Virginia, the Tennessee border, the son of well-educated and well-respected Baptist minister and mother who supplemented her public school education with uncommon amount of intelligence and social grace. Johnson remembered his parents as knowing of the Negroes and most of the white families that had any standing at all, and as living on terms ranging from tolerant indifference to restrained cordiality with all of them. He remembered Saturday afternoon shopping excursions with his mother, afternoons completed with visit to the town's drugstore soda fountain and trolley car ride home. Bristol was no idyllic racial oasis - racial distinctions manifested themselves in the small concentration of black businesses near the red light district and in the racial seclusion of poorer blacks, and Bristol played host to its own mob-instigated lynching, drunken spree the town consciously tried for generation afterwards to live down. Nevertheless, lines of communication between blacks and whites were open and well used. When the local paper carried a furtive note about new race legislation, the import seemed distant until the clerk at the drugstore, always friendly and overly generous with his servings of ice cream, nervously busied himself when Charles and his mother arrived one Saturday afternoon and ignored them until the owner appeared, expressed his respect for the family and for Charles's father's profession and character, but alerted them that something had happened, seemed, and that he could not serve us any more at the counter. The conductor the trolley car, too, underwent sudden change of attitude and behavior. Friendly assistance was replaced by strange grimness and determination as he directed blacks to special corner of the car. These friendly old men were now the agents of new and obnoxious policy. For Charles Johnson and other local blacks, it was the beginning of new self-consciousness that burned.(1) Charles S. Johnson had found his cause. As sociologist, teacher, writer, researcher, editor, college president, commission member, foundation advisor, and full-time reformer, Charles Johnson dedicated himself to adjusting America's attitudes toward its black citizens and to improving the condition of race relations in the country and especially in the South. His father was preacher but Charles Johnson, himself, had little of the charisma so often associated with southern preachers. He led no mass movement. He shunned controversy. His name was far more likely to appear in byline than in headline. But Johnson's role as powerful black leader, as one of those giants upon whose shoulders Martin Luther King, Jr., and the other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement stood, is no less substantial for its lack of publicity. For thirty years he served as the consummate race diplomat in hostile territory - the American South. This essay will provide glimpse of Johnson's activities and ideologies as he attempted his constructive collaboration with southern white liberals in an undying effort to improve race relations where they were most miserable.(2) A specific examination of Johnson's relationship to southern liberalism is appealing for number of reasons: highlights the significant contributions of man who tended to work outside the spotlight; adds to an understanding of black leadership in the South; and provides southern black view of southern liberalism, view under-examined in many accounts of the movement. The scope of this exercise allows complete exploration neither of Charles Johnson nor of southern liberalism. Instead, this essay provides an analysis of the intersection of Johnson's life with the spirit and the strategies of the southern liberal movement, particularly as manifested in his relationship with two organizations, the Commission Interracial Cooperation [CIC] and the Southern Regional Council [SRC]. …

South Africans meeting health-care challenges head-on

South Africa, which had wrestled the outside world over its controversial apartheid policies, has opened its doors not only to improving race relations, but working toward realizing a healthier population. Recently, I experienced first-hand the efforts being made to establish mutually beneficial educational projects between the United States and South Africa, offering insights into how the two nations9 health care systems compare and the struggles that remain. Along with H. Patrick Swygert, president of Howard University, and a delegation of 20 faculty members and trustees, I traveled to Johannesburg, Capetown, East London and Durban; our journey spanned the western Cape to the Transvaal on the eastern coast.

Improving Race Relations in a Public Service Agency: A Model Workshop Series

This article describes a workshop series designed to identify racial problems and improve race relations in a major public service agency located in a border state metropolitan area. A three hour workshop model was developed to identify the historical/cultural myths underlying racial stereotypes, to facilitate small group interaction designed to address work-related racial problems and to produce specific recommendations for constructive change. Ten workshops were held, over a five month period, with favorable results.

The Cosby Show

Now that we have seen the final April 30, 1992, episode the television series The Cosby Show, And So We Commence, we can examine the social and historical impact on its audiences. Commentators in the mass media have asserted that one of the show's greatest consequences was its help in improving race relations by projecting universal values that both Whites and Blacks could identify with, using the tried-and-true situation comedy format(Ehrenstein, 1988; Gray, 1989; Johnson, 1986; Norment, 1985; Stevens, 1987). Believing that television mirrors society and articulates its values, proponents of this perspective point to the overwhelming popularity of the show among White viewers as well as its almost entirely positive assessment by White analysts and the White media. For many seasons, the show was highly rated and has been credited, among other consequences, with reviving the genre of the sitcom and saving the ailing NBC network (Curry, 1986; Frank & Zweig, 1988; Poussaint, 1988; Taylor, 1989). However, a few recent researchers have suggested that, to the contrary, the show's popularity has set back race relations because its view of Black assimilation fails to take into account the context of the world outside of the four walls of the Huxtable household (Teachout, 1986) and because it allows Whites to excuse institutional discrimination and to become desensitized to racial inequality (Gates, 1992). They do this by asserting that if Black people fail, they only have themselves to blame because any White person can point out the successful, affluent Black family on The Cosby Show

Writing Up the New Negro: The Construction of Consumer Desire in the Twenties

On the eve of the publication of his first novel, The Fire in the Flint, Walter White received a letter from T. S. Stribling, whose novel Birthright had inspired White to write Fire in the first place. Both novels tell the story of a Northern-educated black's return to his Southern hometown with the intention of uplifting the black community and improving race relations. In his letter, however, Stribling makes it clear that the similarities between the two novels end there.Fire's main character, says Stribling, is so “poky in love making… I rather suspect a big healthy passion wouldn't have hurt.” He proceeds to criticize Fire's ending in which the main character is lynched following much violence against his family: “The repeated murder and the repeated burning is what I object to. That may be quite natural, and I admit that lynchings are monotonous, but art is the escape of life from monotony. ” At this point, it appears that Stribling is offering the standard critique of much politically-charged literature. He seems to be accusing White of being factually accurate, but aesthetically uninteresting. However, in a follow-up letter responding to White's defense of the novel's ending, Stribling criticizes White for being inaccurate:Here you are, a young Negro writer with a very fine promise. I insist that you write in the big style, in the unhurried style that shows human beings as they are… Now White, detach yourself, my boy. Cut away, be a camera, not a gatling gun.

Where do we stand? Views of racial conflict by Vietnamese American high-school students in a black-and-white context

This article, based on qualitative research, authorizes the voices and views of Vietnamese immigrant students regarding racial dynamics at an urban public high school. Though not included in public or school-based discussions about race relations following a violent clash between white and black students, Vietnamese students reported experiencing social exclusion and racial conflict as a daily reality in school. The informants mapped the roots of racial conflict in school as a struggle over space, including the classroom, hallways, cafeteria, gym, and bathrooms. The students also demonstrated a significant commitment to the school and expressed a desire to be included in efforts to improve race relations and the quality of life within the school. Their perspectives and experiences challenge the validity of the dominant black-and-white paradigm that defines the public understanding of race relations in the school, the city, and the society.

Prejudice Reduction in Schools: the value of inter‐racial contact

This paper is centrally concerned with criticism of inter‐racial contact as a means of improving race relations. It aims, amongst other things, to highlight the damaging implications of the criticism on practices hitherto thought useful in combating racial prejudice. The main focus of the paper is the charge that a reduction in prejudice towards individual members of a group does not transfer to the group as a whole. It is argued that whilst there is much evidence to support this charge, the acquisition of positive attitudes towards an entire racial or ethnic group is not an aim that educationalists should seek to realise. In the light of this objection, an alternative view of the purpose of inter‐racial contact is proposed such that the value of contact be judged in terms of whether it helps diminish the tendency to indulge in unsupported generalisations. To promote this goal it is urged that wherever practicable, inter‐racial contact, under specified conditions, should form part of a programme that emph...

The Race Relations Competence Workshop: Theory and Results

This paper presents the theoretical basis and the associated perceptions of race relations that characterized a race relations competence workshop which served as the educational component of an overall program to improve race relations among managers within the fictitiously named XYZ Corporation. Workshop activities combined didactic and experiential methods and focused on group and individual levels of learning based on embedded intergroup relations theory. An assessment of the race relations competence workshop was carried out as part of an overall effort to evaluate the race relations improvement program in the company. Employing measures of both global evaluation and perceptions of race relations among managers, the study showed that Blacks evaluated the workshop more favorably than Whites, that reports of having information about the workshop were positively associated with favorable evaluations of the workshop, that workshop participants more than nonparticipants were likely to perceive Whites as hurting Blacks and less likely to perceive Blacks as hurting Whites. Additional analyses showed that, while the workshop generally had favorable effects for participants, the groups most likely to show unfavorable consequences were White male first level managers younger than 41 years and White female first level managers older than 40 years.

The Impact of Behavior Modeling Training on Self-Reports of White Supervisors in Two South African Mines

The present study assessed whether behavior modeling training would improve the self-reports of white, first-line supervisors in relation to their black subordinates in two South African mines. Self-reports of behavior were elicited from 50 supervisors equally split into experimental and control groups. Controlling for retraining differences, the 25 supervisors trained in behavior modeling reported significantly greater improvements in supportive behaviors than the control group of 25 untrained supervisors, selected from the same departments at the two mines. Conversely, controlling for retraining scores, no differences were found for changes in abusive supervisory behavior The importance of adopting a broad, multimodal attitudinal and behavioral intervention approach to dealing with improving race relations is discussed.

James Parkes, the Jews, and Conversionism: A Model for Multi-Cultural Britain?

British historians and others have been slow to recognize the tradition of immigration and ethnic, religious, and racial diversity that has marked the British experience in the modern era. The multi-cultural nature of British society today is harder to ignore, with black groups alone representing over 5 per cent of the total population. Yet the implications of such diversity both in the past and in the present have not been properly acknowledged by academics, politicians, or society as a whole. Coloured immigration, following that of the Jews from Eastern and Central Europe, has tended to be viewed only in problematic terms—such newcomers are seen to bring with them the potential for racial strife. Immigration control—from the turn of the century to the present day—has been consistently justified by politicians, commentators, and agitators on the grounds that it will improve race relations in this country. Of equal significance have been the limitations of those opposed to racism and the control of entry. Support of immigrants and minorities has been generally limited to attacks on racism. In the process, issues concerning pluralism and the need to accept diversity have been relatively ignored. Such tendencies within anti-racism reflect the domination of assimilationist assumptions with regard to minorities. This has been particularly the case with the left-liberal world which has been dominant in the campaign against racism in the twentieth century. It is thus not surprising that the Rushdie affair caused enormous shock in Britain amongst those who assumed that religion no longer mattered in this country. It was, in the words of Fay Weldon, ‘like a tidal wave’ removing what was left of liberal illusions concerning race relations.

Participation in Extracurricular Activities in Secondary School: What Is Known, What Needs to Be Known?

The paper reviews literature relating to extracurricular participation and adolescent development. Five areas are described: personal-social characteristics, academic achievement, educational aspirations and attainments, participants’ roles in activities, and environmental social context. A methodological critique and directions for future research are provided. Participation correlated with higher levels of self-esteem, improved race relations, involvement in political/social activity in young adulthood, academic ability and grades in males, educational aspirations and attainments, feelings of control over one’s life, and lower delinquency rates. However, causal relationships between participation and desirable characteristics have not been demonstrated. Students in smaller schools participate in a greater number and variety of extracurricular activities than students in larger schools. Low-ability and lower SES students are more involved in school life in smaller schools. The existing findings justify additional research into the processes by which participation may influence students’ lives.

Book Review: Strategies for Improving Race Relations: the Anglo-American experience

Book Review: Strategies for Improving Race Relations: the Anglo-American experience

Southern Black Elected Officials: Impact on Socioeconomic Change

Although this is an exploratory, descriptive analysis based on perceptual, not objective, data, several general conclusions are suggested. First of all, most black city officials claimed, and a sample of white observers agreed, that they have helped provide improved services for Blacks, especially streets, water and sewage, and recreation, and to a lesser extent, police protection and public employment. These basic services are considered to be some of the most pressing problems in most black areas. Yet black officials felt severely constrained in their ability to deal with politically sensitive private sector services like housing and employment. Of greatest importance, however, are the most symbolic kinds of benefits that these officials believed they had provided. These benefits included representing black interests and needs in the political process, encouraging other Blacks to run for elected office, modifying racial steretotypes, serving as role models, and educating Blacks on how to become more politically effective. In addition, many knowledgeable whites felt that black officials served to improve race relations in their communities and sensitized white officials to black problems. This ability to effect mainly symbolic, rather than substantive, changes reflects the limits of black politics when such officials are politically inexperienced, constrained by a white council and a predominantly white electorate, and feel ineffective in improving private sector services.

Effective educational strategies for desegregated schools

Students in a desegregated school system usually manifest the full range of learning capabilities. Thus, effective educational strategies for students in desegregated schools would be a combination of strategies most effective for children who are handicapped, have limited or no English-speaking ability, require compensatory education, are academically gifted, or who have no special needs. In other words, strategies that work for different types of children generally work for them whether a school is desegregated or not. In some ways, desegregation renders effective education more difficult. At the same time, desegregation can create opportunities to enhance the education youngsters receive because it can create possibilities for and sometimes force changes in curricula, classroom structures, instructional practices, and behavior of teachers and administrators (Hawley, forthcoming). Moreover, racially integrated schools have one certain advantage over racially isolated schools: they offer opportunities to learn from and about persons of at least one other race. In most cases, students in desegregated schools also will experience more interaction with persons of different social backgrounds than will students in segregated school systems. Desegregation's overall effects on students show that it generally (a) improves the educational achievement of minorities and does not, at least, reduce the achievement of whites (Crain & Mahard, 1981) and (b) usually results in improved race relations where schools make appropriate efforts to achieve this result (Schofield, 1981; McConahay, 1981). This paper, however, points to educational strategies to enhance the probabilities of maximizing potential benefits of desegregation and minimizing potential costs. It is not a full prescription for effective My intent suggests some steps important to do in desegregated schools in addition to the things that should be done to otherwise provide children with a People will differ, of course, on their definition of quality education. In this paper, or effectiveness is defined in terms of (a) academic achievement in mathematics and language arts, and (b) tolerance and understanding of persons of different races and social backgrounds. Conclusions reported here are based on findings of a recent study which I directed involving extensive reviews of the written research and commentary on the effects of desegregation (Hawley, Crain, Rossell, Fernandez, Schofield, Smylie, Tompkins, Trent, & Zlotnik, 1981) surveys of educators (Trent, 1981), and interviews with 135 local and national desegregation experts (Trent, 1981). This paper draws directly