School Desegregation, Inter-Racial Contact and Prejudice. Final Report / Charles S. Bullock, III.

Research reported here deals with 5,800 Georgia high school students' racial attitudes. Data were collected using a paper and pencil survey instrument administered to blacks and whites in 28 schools. A total of 21 independent variables were selected through an extensive literature search and used in the analysis. These were grouped into four categories: interracial contact, background characteristics of the respondents, perceptions of the racial attitudes of reference groups, and psychological attitudes. When bivariate relationships were inspected, tolerance among whites was shown to be related to frequent interracial contact, higher status, extensive parental education, and 12 other variables. Among blacks, fewer variables were associated with racial tolerance and the relationships were weaker. These were: high educational aspirations; being older, female, and urban; having good grades, high self-esteem, and anomie; and perceiving tolerance. Among family, friends, and community, the relative importance of the correlates of racial tolerance was assessed through step-wise multiple regression. Perceptions of the attitudes of parents was generally the most important variable. (Author/AM)

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