integration of Schools

Integration versus Desegregation

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that educational facilities [Page 486]segregated on the basis of race were unequal and called for separate school systems to be terminated with all deliberate speed. The desegregation of elementary and secondary schools transformed the space within which students were legally permitted to attend school, signifying a change in the ecological conditions of schools. Although desegregation is a necessary prerequisite to remedy school segregation that was deemed illegal in Brown, it is insufficient to achieve integration.

Gordon Allport's intergroup contact theory is central to the idea of integration and has been shown to reduce prejudices between racial and ethnic groups. In addition to desegregation, Allport's theory suggests that the following four conditions are necessary to achieve integration and reduce intergroup prejudices:

• 1.
  equal status between all involved groups,
• 2.
  involved groups work toward a common goal,
• 3.
  cooperation is emphasized while competition is de-emphasized, and
• 4.
  adults and authority figures offer their full support.

The four conditions suggested by Allport's theory facilitate the reduction of prejudices between racial and ethnic groups. Integrated schools experience these four conditions in addition to desegregation, while desegregated schools simply permit members of different racial and ethnic groups to attend the same school.

Integrated Curriculum and Multiculturalism

From a sociological perspective, curriculum traditionally has been viewed as a tool with which to socialize groups, particularly, to socialize the Other. Specifically, curricula have served to assimilate subordinate groups to the dominant group's norms, values, culture, and language. Integrated schools not only challenge ethnocentric curricula used to socialize the Other, but also incorporate the voices and alternate perspectives of previously marginalized groups. Following the same four conditions posited by Allport, an integrated curriculum views multiple perspectives equally, encourages cooperative learning, is oriented toward a common goal, and authority figures including parents, teachers, principals, and upper-level administrators fully support the curriculum design.

Integrating multiple perspectives into the curriculum should not simply be additive or supplementary to the previously established curriculum. In higher education, this supplementary structure is seen in the addition of women's studies and ethnic studies, which do begin to give voice to those historically marginalized, but exist separately from mainstream course offerings and requirements. In elementary and secondary schooling, this phenomenon can occur when the curriculum includes culturally specific events or celebrations such as Black History Month without integrating the voices and perspectives of marginalized groups into the mainstream, everyday curriculum. In this sense, students are exposed to a superficial understanding of these perspectives, their importance is significantly reduced, and such curriculum designs perpetuate ethnocentrism. Much like desegregation is necessary but insufficient to create equitable educational opportunities, multiculturalism that is simply conceptualized but not carried out is insufficient as well. To this effect, multicultural curriculum that is improperly developed or implemented works against the integration of schools. Multicultural efforts should simultaneously challenge existing curriculums and the power structures they represent while offering alternative perspectives from what has traditionally been considered the norm. Integrated multicultural efforts are built into the curriculum and maintained in the course offerings, the design of specific courses, and in the course materials used.

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