Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: While the effects of school racial composition on students’ outcomes has been a topic of some interest for decades, to date there is no good research on how racial composition affects students’ college applications. We test two main theories on the effects of segregation: oppositional culture and the related “acting white” hypothesis, and perpetuation theory and the contact hypothesis. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System we analyze how high school classroom racial composition affects black students’ subsequent higher education application behavior, looking at effects on application versus no application at a four-year postsecondary institution, selectivity of colleges applied to, and racial composition of colleges applied to. We find that high school racial composition has no effect on whether or not a student applies to a four-year post-secondary institution nor the selectivity of institutions applied to; high school classroom composition, however, did have a significant positive effect on application at a predominantly black university. These results support perpetuation theory and the contact hypothesis while lending no support to theories of oppositional culture or “acting white.”