An observational study of peer interaction in racially mixed "accelerated" classrooms.

Abstract

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Partner Preferences of British Asian and White Girls and Boys on the Middle School Playground: Do They Vary As a Function of Activity?

“…Relatively few studies have incorporated both race and gender, and even fewer included them as both independent and dependent variables. One exception was reported by Schofield & Francis (1982 ). Although both boys and girls interacted with other-race children at rates significantly lower than chance would predict (given the relative availability of own-race and other-race peers), this effect was more pronounced in girls than boys.…”

“…Preferences for own-race over other-race peers are evident from both verbal self-reports (such as sociometry) (Boult on & Smith, 1996;Davey & Mullin, 1980;Milner, 1983) and from direct observations in naturalistic settings (Finkelstein & Haskins, 1983;Schofield & Francis , 1982;Schofield & Sagar, 1977;Urberg & Kaplan, 1989 ). Similarly, preferences for own-gender over othergender peers have been noted from self-report (Bukowski, Gauze, Hoza, & Newcombe, 1993;Hayden-Thomson, Rubin, & Hymel, 1987 ; see also Lockhead & Klein, 1985, for a review ) and observational data Acknowledgments: Th e research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council, Swindon.…”

School Desegregation and Intergroup Relations: A Review of the Literature

“…They are generally very insensitive to changes in patterns of social interaction that do not involve the development of especially strong relationships. Yet it is only logical to expect that one might find more change in weak ties between students in desegregated schools than in the strong tie of friendship, as Granovetter (1986) and Schofield and Francis (1982) have pointed out. In fact, Clement and Livesay's (1979) analysis of social relations in five desegregated schools concludes that the development of really close social relationships between black and white students is quite unusual, although students often interact in relatively harmonious and cooperative ways.…”

Patterns of Bully/Victim Problems in Mixed Race Groups of Children

“…We looked to the developmental psychology literature on children's racial attitudes and preferences, as well as to the social psychology liter-ature on intergroup dynamics, in order to generate the hypothesis that was tested in this research. The former field of research has shown that children of the age we studied generally have more favourable attitudes towards, and a greater preference for, members of their own racial group compared with members of other racial groups (Aboud, 1988;Boulton & Smith, 1992;Davey, 1983;Howes & Wu, 1990;Milner, 1983;Schofield & Francis, 1982). The theory of social judgement (Tajfel, 1959), and the ensuing work carried out to test it (Frable & Bem, 1985;Hewstone, Hantzi & Johnstone, 1991;Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff & Ruderman, 1978) can be used to help account for these results.…”