The Center for Interracial Cooperation: A Field Experiment

In a field experiment which contrasts two treatments for producing equal-status behavior in interracialgroups of early adolescents and pre-adolescents, it was hypothesized that Expectation Training, based on previous theoretical and laboratory work, would be more powerful than Learning Center, the alternative treatment. Effects of treatment were measured immediately after the intervention and again after three weeks of classroom experience with a cooperative curriculum. It was also hypothesized that the experience of social interaction in these specially structured classrooms would act to maintain the effects of the initial treatment. Results showed equal-status behavior in the students experiencing both treatments on the first measurement. The final measurement indicated some treatment differences, with a pattern of white dominance reappearing in the Female Learning Center. There was a tendency toward black-domination in Male Expectation Training in the long run. Test of the second hypothesis indicated that the classroom phase was associated with no significant changes in black initiation rates over time.