School Integration and Occupational Achievement of Negroes

American Negroes who attend integrated public schools have better jobs and higher incomes throughout at least the next three decades of their life. The differences in income cannot be accounted for by the higher educational attainment of alumni of integrated schools, or by the higher differences in social background. The most significant effect of integrated schooling is probably not "educational." It is probably more important that Negroes who attend integrated schools will have more contact with whites as adults, and tend to have more trust in whites than do Negroes from segregated schools. This in turn partially overcomes a crucial barrier to equal opportunity-the fact that information about employment opportunities is spread through types of informal social contacts to which few Negroes have access.