Recent research on equal-status interracial contact suggests that such contact lessens prejudice. The present study extends research on equal-status contact into a situation designed to elicit favorable contact, namely faculty desegregation in public schools. Black and white teachers were interviewed with regard to their levels of prejudice both before and after participating in an in-service training institute on problems of school desegregation in Houston, Texas. In addition, a follow-up survey was administered sixteen months after the conclusion of institute training. The conclusions were: (1) after completion of institute training white respondents scored significantly lower on all measures of prejudice while black scores remained relatively stable; (2) teachers who participated in institute training were significantly less prejudiced than were a random sample of non-institute participants selected from the same schools; and (3) institute training was more effective in lessening white prejudice tow ard blacks than in reducing black prejudice toward whites. In relating these findings to recent research by Cohen and Roper and W. Scott Ford, we conclude that many interracial contact situations that are perceived as being of equal status by whites are not perceived in the same manner by blacks, a conclusion which suggests a modification of the traditional equal-status contact hypothesis as well as having direct implications for policy-making in the area of school desegregation.
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Robinson et al. (1976) studied this question.