The failure to attain a true synthesis of six ethnographic studies of interracial education in desegregated schools is examined. Detailed individual descriptions of desegregation processes were yielded but the failure of summary attempts is attributed to the lack of a theory of social explanation appropriate to interpretive social science, and a…

This study reports on an ethnographic investigation of a desegregated high school in Memphis, Tennessee. Processes of interracial education that occur in a desegregated school are examined in a discussion of some principles of educational stratification. The interaction of stratification and schooling in the United States is explained. The…