Switching for Survival: Piercing the Social-Emotional Experiences of Black Students in St. Louis’ Desegregation Program

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 4. Diversity, Inequality and Education: Good Schools/Bad Schools

Abstract

This paper examines the social-emotional experiences related to black students from the city of St. Louis who participated in the St. Louis Voluntary Desegregation program,which at one time was the largest voluntary desegregation program in the United States. During its inception, this program allowed black students from the city of St. Louis, Missouri to transfer into predominantly white suburban school districts. White students from the participating suburban school districts, on the other hand, could attend the city’s magnet schools. Building on Du Bois’s idea of double-consciousness, social-emotional scholarship, and existing research on African-American students in predominantly white schools, ethnographic-styled research interviews with 30 former participants of the program throughout the history of the program (1983-present) highlighted a constant tug of war between the black students’ racial and ethnic identity against the predominantly white culture of the suburban schools where they transferred. In order to persist, those students who felt they had learned how to better adapt to and interact in the predominantly white environments and to acquire the skills needed to succeed academically and professionally, also felt that parts of their black identity were negated or they had to relinquish key aspects of their culture and identity in the schooling process. Students who were unable to code switch and/or assimilate into their new school environments tended not to complete the program. When attempting to create a system to disrupt systemic racism, like segregation, it is important that we are mindful of the importance to have in place policies and practices that give primacy to black students’ academic and social-emotional experiences. Additional implications for theory, research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Authors

• Jerome Ellis Morris, University of Missouri-St. Louis

• Zori Paul, University of Missouri-St. Louis

• Tiffany Simon, University of Missouri-St. Louis