Desegregation and Black Students' Experiences in Two Rural Southern Elementary Schools

In this article Boocock's model of the social context of education is used to compare divergent climates for black students in 2 rural southern elementary schools. In one school, with 20% black enrollment, black students are dispersed throughout school groups and have equitable access to such school resources as remedial instruction, enrichment activities, advanced reading groups, and various privileges. In the second school, with 40% black enrollment, black students are tracked together into low and average academic groups and have restricted access to school resources. In both schools black and white teachers and students use an assumed color blindness (race makes no difference) and a preoccupation with subject matter to mask differential treatment of black students. The schools' interracial climates are also affected by students' ages, by the schools' and communities' histories, and by institutionalized responses to ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and broader social trends.