The Changing Face of School Segregation in U.S. Schools: Segregation, Desegregation, and Resegregation

• In Event: Roundtable Session 90
  In Roundtable Session: Hot-Button Issues in Changing Times

Abstract

After decades of mandating racial integration in schools, the U.S. Supreme Court recently retreated from this position, adopting a race-neutral approach to student assignment to public schools. We use student- and school-level data from school districts experiencing change in schools’ racial distribution to ask how court-ordered segregation influences student achievement and academic processes in multiple contexts.

We offer empirical evidence concerning the influence of school integration on student outcomes within new settings. School districts struggling after court-ordered desegregation plans are dismantled will benefit from information on the effect of resegregation on student achievement. Communities experiencing rapid influx of immigrants and a de facto segregation of schools will be interested in the influence of new patterns of desegregation on student achievement.

Authors

• Kristie J.R. Phillips, Brigham Young University

• Shana L. Pribesh, Old Dominion University

• Mikaela J. Dufur, Brigham Young University