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<FONT FACE="Palatino"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>This one is a bit thought provoking. Greg<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Palatino"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>STUDY: BETTER EDUCATED WHITES PREFER SEGREGATED SCHOOLS, NEIGHBORHOODS<BR>
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RICE UNIVERSITY - A study, co-authored by Rice sociologist Michael<BR>
Emerson, shows that increased education of whites, in particular, may<BR>
not only have little effect on eliminating prejudice, but it also may<BR>
be one reason behind the rise of racial segregation in U.S. schools.<BR>
Furthermore, higher-educated whites, regardless of their income, are<BR>
more likely than less-educated whites to judge a school's quality and<BR>
base their school choice on its racial composition.<BR>
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Black√white racial segregation has been on the rise in primary and<BR>
secondary schools over the past decade. While whites, especially those<BR>
who are highly educated, may express an interest in having their<BR>
children attend integrated schools, in reality, they seek out schools<BR>
that are racially segregated. In the study, researchers found, on<BR>
average, that the greater the education of white parents, the more<BR>
likely they will remove their children from public schools as the<BR>
percentage of black students increases.<BR>
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Emerson and research colleague David Sikkink, an associate professor<BR>
of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, know that income and<BR>
other factors come into play in terms of school choice, but their<BR>
study shows that, even after controlling for these variables,<BR>
education has an unintended effect. Whites with more education place a<BR>
greater emphasis on race when choosing a school for their children,<BR>
while higher-educated African Americans do not consider race.<BR>
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"I do believe that white people are being sincere when they claim that<BR>
racial inequality is not a good thing and that they'd like to see it<BR>
eliminated," says Emerson. "However, they are caught in a social<BR>
system in which their liberal attitudes about race aren't reflected in<BR>
their behavior."<BR>
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According to the researchers, part of this behavior is explained by<BR>
the place and meaning of schooling for children of more-educated white<BR>
parents. Degrees, for example, become status markers, regardless of<BR>
income. Parents seek quality education for their children to ensure<BR>
they are not hindered from achieving the "good life." As earlier<BR>
studies indicate, education is a key to social mobility and one of the<BR>
most important forms of cultural capital.<BR>
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Emerson and Sikkink cite earlier work on school choice in<BR>
Philadelphia, where race was found to be a factor in whites'<BR>
evaluations of the quality of a school. Unlike blacks, who judged<BR>
schools on the basis of such outcomes as their graduation rates and<BR>
students' test scores, whites initially eliminated any schools with a<BR>
majority of black students before considering factors such as schools'<BR>
graduation rates. When they analyzed a national data set of whites and<BR>
non-Hispanic blacks to see if the level of their education would have<BR>
an impact on their school choice, Emerson and Sikkink found a similar<BR>
pattern. "Whites with higher levels of education still made school<BR>
choices based on race," explains Emerson, "while blacks did not."<BR>
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The researchers found that regardless of income, more-educated whites<BR>
in their data set also lived in "whiter" neighborhoods than<BR>
less-educated whites. Higher-income African Americans also lived in<BR>
whiter, but more racially mixed, neighborhoods than lower-income<BR>
blacks. "The more income African Americans made," Emerson says, "the<BR>
more likely their children attended more racially mixed schools than<BR>
did African American children of less-educated, lower-income parents."<BR>
This, he explains, is because more highly educated or higher-income<BR>
African Americans often live in areas with racially mixed local public<BR>
schools, close to high concentrations of whites that have undergone<BR>
desegregation plans, while African American children of less-educated,<BR>
lower-income parents attend largely black schools. When separating<BR>
income from their analysis, however, the researchers concluded that<BR>
unlike whites, African American parents' higher-education levels don't<BR>
affect their school choice.<BR>
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"Our study arrived at a very sad and profound conclusion," says<BR>
Emerson. "More formal education is not the answer to racial<BR>
segregation in this country. Without a structure of laws requiring<BR>
desegregation, it appears that segregation will continue to breed<BR>
segregation." Titled "School Choice and Racial Residential Segregation<BR>
in U.S. Schools: The Role of Parents' Education," the study will be<BR>
published in an upcoming issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.<BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><U><a href="http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2006/fall/sallyport/segregation.html">http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2006/fall/sallyport/segregation.html</a><BR>
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