The Effects of Classroom Racial Composition on Students' Interracial Friendliness

This study examines the effects of the racial composition of a classroom on students' cross-race and same-race friendships. Two theories of interracial sociability are discussed. The first argues that interracialfriendliness is affected primarily by the number of opportunities students have for cross-race interaction relative to same-race interaction. It predicts that students in the numerical minority are likely to make more cross-race friendship choices than those in the majority. The second theory claims that the racial minority is socially threatened by the majority and tends to isolate itself from the more dominant and powerful other race. These predictions are examined over a school year in a longitudinal data set of473 elementary school students in 18 desegregated classes. The results provide strong support for the opportunity hypothesis and show little evidence that being in the racial minority diminishes interracial friendliness.