Diversity or Desegregation? Racial Differences in Discourses on Social Distance in a Desegregated Suburban District

• In Event: 14.033 - School Desegregation and Educational Equality in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Abstract

School desegregation. These two words have been politically contentious for more than 60 years. These tensions have overshadowed and obscured our understanding of the realities of desegregated schooling. This paper examines the degrees of distance and closeness in experience and discourse among a desegregated suburban school district. Using original qualitative data, I argue we must trouble the assumed value desegregated schools and learn from the narratives of families in desegregated schools.

First, based on analysis of narratives and experiences, I argue a more nuanced lexicon is needed to distinguish between desegregation and integration. The conflation of the two terms in educational writing has led to misunderstanding of social distance and closeness (Frankenberg & Orfield, 2012; Wells & Crain, 1997). Second, the goals of desegregation and integration must be considered from a variety of viewpoints. I argue that Black and White residents not only understood the projects of desegregation and integration differently but their vocabulary and frames of contemporary conditions of their schools offer insight to the perceived intractability of educational inequality.

Setting and Methods
Rolling Acres is a pseudonym that I use for a city in the Midwest of the United States. By most accounts, Rolling Acres is an ideal suburban oasis of approximately 100,000 people. The city is replete with financial resources with residents reporting median household incomes of approximately $72,000 and median house values of $190,000 in 2000 dollars. In the mid 2000s, African-Americans composed roughly 9 percent and Whites composed 75 percent of the city’s population. This study draws from interviews and participant observation of 41 Black and White families who sent their children to schools in Rolling Acres.

White Voices on Diversity
Considerable research attention has fixated on White resistance to desegregation. However, White residents of Rolling Acres were not a part of that vocal contingent. Instead, many parents expressed a support for diversity. Through a discussion of diversity, White adults were able to speak about bypass discussions of desegregation and integration. In their narratives, for White parents Rolling Acres schools were already diverse, thus a racial “promised land” had been reached. Many White parents upbringing in hyper-segregated metropolitan areas contributed to their belief school desegregation was already achieved and there was little need for policy redress of secondary segregation and stratified educational resources.

Black Voices on Desegregation
For Black residents in Rolling Acres, integration and diversity were rarely mentioned as motivations for living in and enrolling their children in suburban public schools. Black parents highlighted the resources available to them relative to their other Black counterparts who were located in city schools. The greater financial resources, historically high performing schools, and smaller school and class sizes were assumed to give their children increased educational opportunity. For these parents, proximity to material resources, not proximity to white bodies, made suburban schools a desired location. Rather than highlighting integration of Black and White students, Black parents highlighted the distances that still remained between Black and White families in their desegregated suburb.

Author

• R. L'Heureux Lewis-McCoy, City College of New York - CUNY