It is difficult to overstate the importance of segregation for race- and ethnicity-based school funding disparities in the United States. In many respects, unequal educational opportunity depends existentially on segregation. Racial and ethnic disparities in wealth accumulation are perpetuated over generations, ensuring persistent segregation even…

"Equality of Educational Opportunity," also known as the Coleman Report, sought answers to two burning questions: (1) How extensive is racial segregation within U.S. schools?; and (2) How adversely does that segregation affect educational opportunities for black students? In answering the first question, James S. Coleman and his…

Previous studies have shown that as the percent black or percent Hispanic grows, that group's residential segregation from whites tends to increase as well. Typically, these findings are explained in terms of white discriminatory reaction to the perceived threat associated with minority population growth. The present analysis examines whether…

Can the recent influx of immigrants successfully enter the mainstream of American life, or will many of them fail to thrive and become part of a permanent underclass? "Achieving Anew" examines immigrant life in school, at work, and in communities and demonstrates that recent immigrants and their children do make substantial progress over time,…

In this paper, the authors estimate the effect of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP, or the Milwaukee voucher program) on integration in public and private schools. Their first question is straightforward: Do the student bodies at private schools participating in MPCP have a racial composition that more closely or less closely resembles…

Three commonly used measures of segregation (index of dissimilarity, p* interaction probabilities, and the correlation ratio) reflect three conceptually distinct aspects of racial residential segregation. The results of empirical studies will depend on the measure chosen. (Author/KH)

A number of public school districts in the United States have adopted income-based integration policies--policies that use measures of family income or socioeconomic status--in determining school assignment. Some scholars and policymakers contend that such policies will also reduce racial segregation. In this article this assumption is explored by…

This study is an examination of how the ethnic enclaves of Hmong and Vietnamese Americans in California exist as social structures through which patterns of relationships shape postsecondary aspirations and outcomes. Results indicate that Hmong and Vietnamese students faced a number of challenges related to language, linguistic discrimination,…

Explains how local, state, and federal governments have exacerbated or failed to take steps to reduce residential segregation in the St. Louis (Missouri) metropolitan area since the 1981 Liddell v. Board of Education decision that decided that school board and governmental housing policies had contributed to segregation in the city's schools. (SLD)

The inequities of residential segregation and their impact on educational opportunity are a national problem, but greater metropolitan Boston has a particularly problematic history in terms of the extent to which racial segregation has deeply divided the city into separate and unequal systems of opportunity. Despite decades of policy efforts to…

Offers an overview of historical connections between race and residential planning in the United States, beginning with planning strategies between the World Wars. This review gives insight into how enforcement of the Federal Fair Housing Act (Title VIII) can promote a more racially and economically integrated society. (SLD)

The policy of open school choice in the Netherlands has increased the isolation of ethnic minority students in urban public schools as white flight occurs. Parents and students tend to separate themselves from those who are different, a finding with implications for school choice in the United States. (SLD)

Traces the development of black-white residential segregation in U.S. cities, and applies the views of Gunnar Myrdal, expressed in the 1940s, to housing trends in the 1980s. While such segregation has decreased, blacks remain more segregated than two other large minority groups (i.e., Hispanics and Asians). Forces influencing residential…

The urban impacts of the Program for Better Jobs and Income, the recent but unsuccessful attempt to reform the welfare system, are analyzed in this paper. The proposed results of this program indicate that these urban impacts would have been minimal, but consistent with an urban policy that seeks to improve the economic viability of distressed…

Specific demographic changes that occurred in the New York City metropolitan area during the 1980s are described, and the challenges and opportunities facing the city in the 1990s are explored. The 1980s saw the greatest increase in the diversity of the city in its history, but sharp inequality, running along racial and ethnic lines, persists in…