Interracial Interaction in a New "Magnet" Desegregated School

Equal status within the contact situation, shared goals, cooperate dependence in reaching these goals, and the support of authorities, law or custom are the criteria which Allport (1954) argued were vital for promoting positive interracial attitudes and behavior. The study reported here investigates the development of interracial interaction patterns in a public school which approaches the Allport criteria. The study utilized a behavioral measure of the amount of voluntary association between students--student seating patterns in the school cafeteria--to assess interracial interaction patterns. Wexler Middle School, which serves 1500 students in grades six through eight, opened in the fall of 1976. The student body, which is 48 percent black, was obtained through open enrollment of students from a large district in a Northeastern industrial city. Analysis of seating patterns suggested the following: (a) race is an extremely important grouping criterion; (b) however, in the sixth and seventh grades, sex is an even more important grouping criterion; (c) racial aggregation decreased over time in the sixth and seventh grades but increased in the eighth grade which had a predominantly white accelerated academic track and a predominantly black regular track, and (d) changes in racial aggregation over time, both positive and negative, were stronger among males than females. (Author/JM)