Pointing out that education is clearly one of society's most basic instruments for achieving social conformity, and socialization in the schools is clearly designed to perpetuate the dominant values of the present social system, the author asks whether it does not seem reasonable that those who most precisely articulate these dominant values are very often those who are most extensively educated. If public schooling results in a considerable degree of conformity, what might be expected from the combination of public schooling, college education, and graduate training? Indeed, will not sociologists of education likely be among the most diligent supporters of the prevailing social institutions, as well as their racial values? By discussing school desegregation as an instrument of social policy, the author intends to begin a critical examination of some of the values, assumptions, and questions that underly much of the work of sociologists of education. This paper focuses on three broad areas: (1) the historical relationship between national desegregation policy and social science research; (2) the characteristics of the local school desegregation decision; and (3) the actual utility of research on desegregation. The objectivity and methodology of sociologists of education apparently serve values of which they may be unaware. (Author/JM)