White Enrollment Stability and School Desegregation: A Two-Level Analysis

Recent studies have provided conflicting evidence on the relationship between school desegregation and white enrollment stability. Pettigrew and Green (1976), Farley (1975), Rossell (1976) and Fitzgerald and Morgan (1977) have found desegregation to be unrelated to white enrollment stability. In contrast Bosco and Robin (1974), Lord (1975), Coleman et al. (1975), Munford (1976), Clotfelter (1976) and Giles (1977a; 1977b) have reported declines in white student enrollment concurrent with desegregation. The appropriate query therefore should probably not be whether school desegregation leads to white flight, but instead attention ought to focus on the conditions under which white enrollments decrease as a result of desegregation. Among the most frequently cited correlates of white withdrawal is the level of black concentration. There is disagreement, however, about the structure of this relationship. Some studies have found a linear relationship, whereas others have suggested the presence of a tipping point beyond which white withdrawal accelerates and schools become all-black. The present study reexamines the relationship between percent black enrollment and white enrollment change at both the district and the school levels. The analysis focuses on 60 districts and approximately 1,600 schools located in Southern SMSAs. Higher percent black enrollments are found to be associated with the rate of white withdrawal at both the district and the school levels. In both cases this relationship appears to be curvilinear with white withdrawals increasing exponentially with black enrollments over 30%.