This School's Gone Downhill: Racial Change and Perceived School Quality among Whites

Racial segregation in schools and neighborhoods in the United States is stark and persistent. The results of this research provide clues as to why it may be so enduring. We find that as predominantly white schools in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area experience increases in black representation of up to seven percentage points during a four- to five-year period, white neighborhood residents are more likely to perceive that the quality of their schools has declined, despite the current conditions of the schools and in spite of changes in school characteristics. Our results are more consistent with racial threat theory than contact theory because they suggest that white residents may initially be threatened by racial change and judge declining school quality according to the racial change itself As a consequence, white families may flee these integrating schools and neighborhoods, further contributing to school and neighborhood segregation.