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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

reciprocal relationships, school and residential diversity, perpetuation theory

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Sociology

Abstract

In 1954—ten years before the Civil Rights Act was passed—the Supreme Court ruled on the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. In their ruling, the Court held that state-imposed racial segregation created “inherently unequal” schools that were unconstitutional. Thus, public schools became the first institutions to be held accountable for overturning Jim Crow segregation practices and shepherding in a new era of race relations. In addition to promoting equitable access to quality schools, Brown was also intended to “alter the attitudes and socialization of all children—beginning at the youngest ages” (Johnson 2011:38) and increase interracial contact (Clotfelter 2004). Moreover, exposure to racially diverse experiences early in life was hypothesized to decrease fear and anxiety that might otherwise be associated with interracial interactions. Thus, as described by perpetuation theory, early experiences with diversity would increase one’s likelihood of participating in diverse settings later in life (Braddock 1980; McPartland and Braddock 1981). In their more recent work, Braddock and Gonzalez (2010) further expanded perpetuation theory by arguing that students who participate in ethnically diverse experience early in life are not only more likely to participate in ethnically diverse experiences later in life, but so is the future generation of their children. However, few studies have offered empirical tests of the intergenerational consequences of attending an ethnically diverse school.

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