Lessons in Integration : Realizing the Promise of Racial Diversity in American Schools

Based on the fruits of a collaboration between the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the Southern Poverty Law Center, the research presented in ""Lessons in Integration"" analyzes five decades of experience with desegregation efforts in order to discover the factors accounting for successful educational experiences in an integrated setting. Starting where much political activity and litigation, as well as most previous scholarship, leave off, this collection addresses the question of what to do - and to avoid doing - once classrooms are integrated, in order to maximize the educational benefits of diversity for students from a wide array of backgrounds.In a society with more than 40 percent nonwhite students and thousands of suburban communities facing racial change, it is critical to learn the lessons of experience and research regarding the effective operation of racially diverse and inclusive schools. ""Lessons in Integration"" makes a significant contribution to knowledge about how to make integration work, and as such, it will have a positive effect on educational practice while providing much-needed assistance to increasingly beleaguered proponents of integrated public education.