Desegregation vs. Racial Avoidance in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s
The next chapter by Dr. Odis Johnson Jr. is titled “Why did the Convergence of the Achievement Gap Stop? Macroeconomic Change, Policy, and Racial Avoidance.” It discusses the seemingly contradictory phenomena of the brief period in the 1970s and 80s of reduced educational inequality and increased spatial disequilibrium. He argues that we must look beyond the most popular explanation, which lies solely in economic change. While macroeconomic transformation did play a significant role in shaping education during this period, the analysis must include desegregation measures and reactions by the population to and against these policies.
Due to historical factors, trends, and perceptions, often, racial relations are seen as secondary to economic forces. In the 1970s and 80s, there was a shift in academic inequality between white and black students, represented through trends like converging test scores. Dr. Johnson looks at desegregation policies as the source of convergence. Policies toward desegregation allowed for greater equality in school resources and opportunities, creating a period of improved educational performance by black students.
However, desegregation in schools also led to a counter-movement which ended the period of convergence by the 1990s. The desegregation policies turned schools into spatial agents. It motivated school preferences and mobility in white families and created an environment where racial avoidance could thrive. White people could use their wealth and resources to move away from neighborhoods and school districts with a higher concentration of black people.
On the other hand, Black Americans faced economic and racial barriers to movement and were often unable to migrate away from urban centers. The migratory patterns of white families under the principles of racial avoidance reinforced racially divided neighborhoods and school districts and halted the progress of desegregation. This, in turn, countered the gains made through desegregation policies in the 70s and 80s and led the process toward educational equality to slow and stop by the time it was the 90s.
A close examination of this period demonstrates the impossibility of separating the effects of labor market transformation and racial discrimination in shaping educational inequality. Moreover, while the traditional explanation of economic shifts shaping migration and education quality is one perspective, it ignores the truth that while neighborhoods and politics shape schools, schools also exert influence over the political and social spaces around them.
About the Author
Stella Hudson is a Graduate Assistant with the Baha’i Chair for World Peace. She graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2021 with a B.A. in English. She is attending the University of Maryland and pursuing a Master’s of Library and Information Science.