Research on the Benefits of Integration
Academic Benefits

Attending racially integrated schools and classrooms improves the academic
achievement of minority students measured by test scores (Mickelson 2006;
Mickelson 2003; Borman et al., 2004: Borman and Dowling, 2006).

The diverse learning environment provided by integrated school and
classroom settings enhances critical thinking skills among all students
(Antonio et al., 2004).
Improved Opportunities for Minority Students

Minority students who attended integrated schools have higher incomes than
their peers in segregated schools (Boozer et al., 1992; Ashenfelter et al, 2005).

Minority students graduating from desegregated schools tend to complete
more years of education, have higher college attendance rates, and tend to
choose more lucrative occupations in which minorities are historically
underrepresented (Crain and Strauss, 1985; Braddock and McPartland, 1987).

Integrated schools enable minority students to have access to social networks
associated with opportunity (Granovetter 1986).
Social Benefits

Students who experience interracial contact in integrated school settings are
more likely to live, work, and attend college in more integrated settings
(Braddock, Crain, and McPartland, 1984).

Interracial contact in desegregated settings decreases racial prejudice among
students and facilitates more positive interracial relations (Pettigrew and
Tropp, 2006; Killen and McKown, 2005; Holme et al., 2005).

Students who attend integrated schools report an increased sense of civic
engagement compared to their segregated peers (Kurlaender and Yun, 2005)

Integrated classrooms improve the stability of interracial friendships and
increase the likelihood of interracial friendships as adults (Hallinan and
Williams, 1987; Kahlenberg 2001).
Community Benefits

When implemented on a metro-wide scale, school integration can promote
residential integration and enhance neighborhood stability (Frankenberg,
2005; Orfield, 2001; Orfield and Luce, 2005).
Bibliography
Anthony Lising Antonio et al., Effects of Racial Diversity on Complex Thinking in
College Students,” Psychological Science, vol. 15, no. 8 (2004), pp. 507-510.
Orley Ashenfelter, William J. Collins, and Albert Yoon, “Evaluating the Role of Brown
vs. Board of Education in School Equalization, Desegregation, and the Income of African
Americans,” American Law and Economics Review, vol. 8, issue 2 (2006), pp. 213-248.
Michael A. Boozer et al., “Race and School Quality Since Brown v. Board of Education,”
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Microeconomics. (1992), pp. 269-338.
Geoffrey D. Borman and N. Maritza Dowling, “Schools and Inequality: A Multilevel
Analysis of Coleman’s Equality of Educational Opportunity Data,” (2006) Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San
Francisco, CA.
Kathryn Borman et al., “Accountability in a Postdesegregation Era: The Continuing
Significance of Racial Segregation in Florida’s Schools,” American Educational
Research Journal, vol. 41, no. 3 (2004), pp. 605-631.
Jomills H. Braddock, Robert L. Crain, and James M. McPartland, “A Long-Term View
of School Desegregation: Some Recent Studies of Graduates as Adults,” Phi Delta
Kappan, vol. 66, no. 4 (1984), pp. 259-264.
Jomills H. Braddock and James M. McPartland, “How Minorities Continue to be
Excluded from Equal Employment Opportunities: Research on Labor Market and
Institutional Barriers,” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 43, no. 1 (1987), pp. 5-39.
R. L. Crain and J. Strauss, School Desegregation and Black Occupational Attainments:
Results from a Long-Term Experiment. (Baltimore: Center for Social Organization of
Schools, 1985), Report No: 359.
Erica Frankenberg, “The Impact of School Segregation on Residential Housing Patterns:
Mobile, Alabama, and Charlotte, North Carolina,” in John Charles Boger and Gary
2
Orfield (eds.) School Resegregation: Must the South Turn Back? (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 2005), pp. 164-184.
Mark Granovetter, “The Micro Structure of School Desegregation,” in J. Prager, D.
Longshore and M. Seeman (eds.) School Desegregation Research: New Directions in
Situational Analysis. (New York: Plenum Press, 1986), pp. 81-110.
Maureen Hallinan and Richard Williams, “The Stability of Students’ Interracial
Friendships,” American Sociological Review, vol. 52 (1987), pp. 653-664.
Jennifer Jellison Holme, Amy Stuart Wells, Anita Tijerina Revilla, “Learning through
Experience: What Graduates Gained by Attending Desegregated High Schools,” Equity
and Excellence in Education, vol. 38, issue 1 (2005), pp. 14-24.
Richard Kahlenberg, All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public
School Choice. (Brookings Institution Press, 2001).
Melanie Killen and Clark McKown, “How Integrative Approaches to Intergroup
Attitudes Advance the Field,” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, vol. 26
(2005), pp. 612-622.
Michal Kurlaender and John T. Yun, “Fifty Years After Brown: New Evidence of the
Impact of School Racial Composition on Student Outcomes,” International Journal of
Educational Policy, Research and Practice, vol. 6, no. 1 (2005), pp. 51-78.
Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, “The Academic Consequences of Desegregation and
Segregation: Evidence from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,” North Carolina Law
Review, vol. 81 (2003), pp. 1513-1562.
Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, “Segregation and the SAT,” Ohio State Law Journal, vol. 67
(2006), pp. 157-199.
Gary Orfield, “Metropolitan School Desegregation: Impacts on Metropolitan Society,” in
john. a. powell, Gavin Kearney, and Vina Kay (eds.), In Pursuit of a Dream Deferred.
(New York: Peter Lang, 2001), pp. 121-157.
Myron Orfield and Thomas Luce, Minority Suburbanization and Racial Change: Stable
Integration, Neighborhood Transition, and the Need for Regional Approaches,
(Minneapolis: Institute on Race and Poverty, 2005).
Thomas Pettigrew and Linda Tropp, “A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact
Theory,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 90 (2006), pp. 751-783.
3