Tolerance of School Desegregation, 1954-77

Predictions about changes in racial attitudes offered by Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma are tested using responses to questions on school desegregation from 16 surveys between 1954 and 1977. A flow graph model for difference equations involving categorical variables is used to organize responses from the survey pool totaling 22,505 respondents. Although there has been about a 30 percent increase in tolerance of school desegregation over time, cohort and education subgroups maintain consistent differences among themselves; and regional differences dissipate at a rate that can be approximated using a linear equation. Contrary to Myrdal's predictions, other findings indicate (1) only about 5 percent of the increase in tolerance is due to cohort replacement; (2) less than .4 percent of the increased racial tolerance is due to increased educational attainment; (3) cohort effects on educational attainment depress tolerance about .4 percent; and (4) more than 20 percent of the change in tolerance is due to increases among all educational and cohort groups.