Impacts of School Racial Diversity on Precursors to the Development of Antiracism in White Youth

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Abstract

School segregation by race contributes to Black-White disparities in youth and adulthood outcomes (e.g., Guryan, 2004; Reardon & Owens, 2014). Desegregation helps by reducing racial inequality in school resources—something other educational policies (e.g., school finance reforms) might also achieve while facing fewer political and judicial obstacles (e.g., Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1). But integration also explicitly aims to increase the racial diversity of schools and contact between Black and White youth. Psychologists theorize that intergroup contact can improve racial attitudes and decrease bias and prejudice (Allport, 1947)—which would also subsequently improve outcomes for Black youth (e.g., Pearman, 2022) and adults (e.g., Charles & Guryan, 2008). However, with a few exceptions (e.g., Billings et al., 2021), most evidence supporting contact theory in K-12 schools is neither rigorous nor longitudinal (Paluck et al., 2018; Schofield, 1991). Furthermore, an alternative psychological theory—racial threat (Key, 1949)—predicts stronger negative racial prejudices as White educational stakeholders perceive resources to be scarcer in racially integrated schools.

With this study, I thus contribute rigorous evidence to extant research by asking: What is the causal impact of school racial diversity on precursors to the development of antiracism in White youth? Antiracist individuals not only possess nonprejudiced beliefs but are also actively challenging racism by pursuing efforts that address racial inequality (LaCosse et al., 2021). Contact theory and racial threat both suggest that exposure to racially diverse schools can shift racial attitudes, prejudices, and biases. I investigate whether these contexts also affect other related precursors to antiracism, including individuals’ political beliefs, civic engagement, and prosocial behaviors. I contend that those fighting for racial justice are likely to be: politically engaged, supporting policy efforts that remedy disparities, and pursuing opportunities to help others, even if it be detrimental to their own outcomes.

To answer the research question, I analyze restricted-use, nationwide Add Health data and focus on approximately 6,000 White students and their longitudinal outcomes capturing precursors to antiracism. To identify plausibly causal effects for my main regression predictor—the proportion of peers in the same grade cohort who are Black—I include school fixed effects in models. This results in exogenous variation when assuming that, within a school, selection into specific grade levels is independent of the racial composition of students (see Hoxby, 2000).

Initial results suggest that school racial diversity does not affect most precursors to antiracism for White youth (e.g., volunteer hours, prosociality of occupations, having racially diverse neighbors or friends). However, having more Black school peers makes individuals significantly more civically engaged (i.e., registered to vote) and politically conservative (which connects with more opposition to equity-oriented policies and negative racial attitudes; Valentino & Sears, 2005). When exploring mechanisms, I do find that increased school racial diversity resulted in White youth having more Black friends, but also worse perceptions of their school climate. Overall, these tentative results suggest that racial threat effects may be dominating theoretical positive impacts of contact theory in more integrated K-12 settings.

Author

• Mark Chin, Vanderbilt University