Collaborative Research: School Segregation and Resegregation: Using Case Studies and Public Polls to Understand Citizen Attitudes

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Why are some school districts able to sustain school desegregation while others are not? Although social scientists have been active in studying the effects of school racial composition on student achievement, relatively neglected is the inclusion of variation among districts in the social factors that lead to school district segregation itself. Using five case studies and public opinion polls, the research team will study the relationship between citizen characteristics and their attitudes and values supporting (or failing to support) school desegregation. This study increases the value of five strategically chosen case studies including those of Wake County, NC (Raleigh); Davidson County, TN (Nashville); Jefferson County, KY (Louisville); Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC and Rock Hill, SC by fielding an opinion poll in each location, where the polls contain mostly common questions across sites. These polls will reveal similarities and differences in adult attitudes that track to differences in how long these districts have sustained desegregated schools. Study findings have implications for other school districts beyond the five studied here in terms of formulating policy that will better support socioeconomic mixing of students, which enhances diversity by promoting educational attainment and upward mobility in society, especially for at-risk students. Some school districts sustain desegregation over many years while others do not. Existing research is largely based on case studies. Case studies have limited external validity and are often heterogeneous in approach because researchers frame questions and invoke theory differently. The data obtained from in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analyses are rarely triangulated with data from theoretically-driven surveys of the school district's adult population. These attitudes and values play an important part in explaining districts' current school assignment policies and inform future policies as well. This study addresses gaps in existing social science literature on desegregation by using a common theoretical perspective and fielding a largely common questionnaire via Interactive Voice Response, supplemented by cell phone samples, across five school districts. The research will produce poll data on a minimum of 5000 adult respondents. Analysis will (1) embed each poll within the existing qualitative data on each case; and (2) use the poll data to analyze both commonalities and differences in values and attitudes across sites.