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The cost of opportunity: School desegregation and changing race relations in the triangle since World War II.
- Format:
- Book
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Author/Creator:
- McElreath, Jack Michael.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Education--History.
- Education.
- History.
- United States--History.
- United States.
- Black people--History.
- Black people.
- 0328.
- 0337.
- 0520.
- Penn dissertations--History.
- History--Penn dissertations.
- Local Subjects:
- Penn dissertations--History.
- History--Penn dissertations.
- 0328.
- 0337.
- 0520.
- Physical Description:
- 590 pages
- Contained In:
- Dissertation Abstracts International 63-05A.
- System Details:
- Mode of access: World Wide Web.
- text file
- Summary:
- This study examines six North Carolina school districts that experienced the desegregation process differently. Four of these districts maintained their white enrollments. A study of these districts helps explain how that feat was possible. Desegregation changed the experiences of students, teachers, administrators, and their communities. The story involves actors from the federal, state and district levels, but, in the end, desegregation was experienced in individual schools. An emphasis on local stories, connected to state and national developments, ties this study to earlier scholarship and newer attempts at synthesis. The vast majority of academic works on the implementation of school desegregation focus on one school district. This comparison of the Raleigh, Durham City, Chapel Hill, Wake, Orange, and Durham County districts, different in size and composition but close in geographic proximity, helps to demonstrate the influence of local factors. This study adds to prior scholarship by providing a complex analysis of how local conditions influence the relative success or failure of school desegregation. Such assessments are best understood as varying on an individual basis, though individuals exercise choices and opportunities within a context determined in part by demographics and leadership. Important demographic factors included the proportion of each district's student population that was African American; residential segregation; size of student enrollments; and geographic size of districts. The quality of leadership was the most important factor in determining the benefits and costs of desegregation. Most schools in the Triangle region avoided serious conflict, and some developed into communities in which genuine integration was possible. The fact that leadership could have this effect showed that the vast majority of students were capable of adjusting to desegregation without great difficulty. The ways in which different communities met the challenges posed by desegregation help to account for the state of subsequent race relations; the ability of communities to reach acceptable compromises and work toward equality in schools indicated potential for cooperation on other fronts. Finally, the calculation of the costs and benefits of school desegregation is extremely complex; especially, many African Americans sacrificed much for a chance at equal educational opportunities.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph.D. in History) -- University of Pennsylvania, 2002.
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 63-05, Section: A, page: 1967.
- Supervisor: Bruce Kuklick.
- Local Notes:
- School code: 0175.
- ISBN:
- 9780493703466
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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