This dissertation is about the development of social movements out of racial and educational conflict in Boston. With a socio historical approach to the problem, this study makes use of oral history interviews, documents from groups involved in the education conflict, and census material. This examination centers on the black community of Boston and its attempts to change the Boston public schools. Among the major aspects of this exploratory study are: an overview of the history of the school conflict in Boston as seen by the black community; a discussion of the beginnings of the contemporary education conflict in 1963, and the mobilization of a school movement in the city's black community in the context of the evolving national civil rights and black power movements; analysis of movement organizations, voluntary busing groups and alternative schools; movement leadership and supporters; and the opposition centering in the school bureaucracy until the 1970's when a counter movement, the anti-busing movement arose in the context of federal governmental policy and local litigation. All of these factors led to school desegregation in Boston in 1974 and 1975. A major conclusion of this study is that both sides of the education conflict in Boston consist of a marginal middle class, blacks and whites, in the city, giving the conflict a particular social class and racial content. (Author/AM)