SPLC Partners with Harvard to Study School Diversity
The Southern Poverty Law Center is joining with Harvard's Civil Rights Project to study diversity in public schools, a subject that has gone more than two decades without serious research.
Public school enrollment at the beginning of the 21st century is more racially diverse than ever before. Current research shows that white students comprise only 60% of the public school enrollment (compared with 80% of the enrollment during the Civil Rights era), and African Americans and Latinos both account for roughly 15% of the enrollment.
By the middle of this century, less than half the students in our nation's public schools will be white, a trend that is occurring much more rapidly in the West and in the South.
Yet, it has been more than two decades since any substantial body of research has been produced to help school districts understand how to productively address the educational, social and personal issues that occur in schools undergoing racial transformations.
Enter a new research project from Harvard's Civil Rights Project and the Center.
The project's call for papers, released Monday, seeks to create a series of new studies from scholars and educators throughout the country addressing how to create positive outcomes in interracial classrooms.
For more information, visit the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.
