The Influence of Private and Public School Contexts on Children’s Racial Coping

• In Event: Toward Black Educational Choice

Abstract

Families and schools have interdependent roles in the socialization of children. African American parents know that their success is dependent upon preparing their children to face the exigencies of racial discrimination. Before this exploratory research paper, no work had been conducted that compared children’s use of racial coping skills among public, inclusive of Comer SDP schools, and private school children in homogeneous African American settings.

Data Sources and Method: School contexts. African American children’s racial coping strategies were assessed in separate studies conducted in Chicago in 1986-87 (Study 1) and 1992-1996 (Study 2). Study 1 was conducted in private schools, and Study 2 was conducted in a group of public schools. Study 1: The racial coping strategies of 41African American children between 5- 14 years old (median age 9-10 years) attending 3 types of all-Black private schools. Study 2: Nineteen predominantly lower-income public schools participated in a 4-year evaluation study of Chicago-based Comer model and matched comparison schools beginning in 1991-2 and including nearly 3468 assessments of individual children in grades 1 and 3 from 1992 through 1996-7. In this paper, we share information on only Comer “Model Implemented Successfully” schools (n = 6) and Comparison schools (n = 9). The present sample includes 1239 grade 3 children.

Method - The Racial Stories Task (RST). Children were administered, the Racial Stories Task, a series of race related social situations and asked to resolve the problem presented in four types of scenarios. Each of the vignettes depicts an overt racial conflict involving another child. The coping domains were developed and reliability conducted in previous work in the private school’s study, and became the standard upon which reliability of the RST and coping domains were established in the public school Comer Intervention study.

Findings: The distribution of ranks between Private versus Public schools was significant beyond chance: X2 = 38.786, 2 d.f., p < .001. The Chi-square analysis suggested rejection of the hypothesis of essentially no difference in the distribution of RCS rankings between the two separated groups, notably, private versus public schools. The Private school group led the three groups 14 times (i.e., with 14 different RCS), and 7 of these 14 RCS's bested both Public school groups (Comer SDP and Comparison) by 10 or more percentage points. In summary, either the private school setting or a school-based intervention that focuses on enhancement of school climate in a direction comparable to that experienced in high quality private schools can support the effective emergence and development of racial coping strategies among African American elementary school children. A key finding for public schools is that SDP schools showed patterns indicating more maturity and growth and an edge on competencies being fostered in those enhanced climates. The success with Comer SDP schools indicates that both public and private schools can optimize the development of racial coping strategies in children.

Author

• Deborah Johnson, Michigan State University