Racial Tolerance as a Function of Group Position

White people's attitudes toward racial desegregation of the public schools are assessed by using items replicated on 22 surveys from 1954 to 1978. Myrdal's statement that racial tolerance reflects adherence to a general principle (equal access to educational opportunity) is compared to Blumer's thesis that racial tolerance varies as a function of the perceived position of groups in a racially stratified system. Depending on the racial mixture implied, whites have different levels of tolerance of school desegregation; but regardless of the racial mix, regional differences in tolerance decrease over time. Where differences in tolerance exist among other demographic subgroups of whites, those differences remain relatively constant.