Promoting Academic Achievement and Racial Understanding: Strategies for Creative Programming to Help Resolve the Dilemmas of Integrated Education

Abstract

This paper offers both a review and critique of past desegregation studies. many of which have not provided concrete strategies for improving integration efforts in schools. In part, much of the desegregation literature relies on assimilationist notions of schooling that see desegregation as successful by its attempt to influence (change) minority students' values through increased exposure to majority student norms. Yet important issues such as high drop out rates, hostile racial climates, long bus rides, and stagnant academic achievement point out concerns in the desegregation effort. In order to improve academic and social climates in desegregated schools, both the realities and potentials of busing, as a social policy, must be challenged.