As a social scientist and education expert, you're interested in how groups of people behave and the choices they make. Your role is not to judge what people do, but learn from what they have done.

Specifically, you want to understand the various integration strategies that have been tried since the 1950s. You will need to know the ideas behind the strategies, but more importantly, your task will be to look at the integration strategies as if they were machines that were meant to work in a certain way.

Given each strategy, what were they meant to achieve? What made people think the strategy was good? How it was used? We can also call this looking for causes and effects (i.e., after causing changes in schools, what effects happened?).

If you can understand the different strategies and what they were meant to achieve, then you can help your group compare which desegregation solutions might work best in which situations. Your expertise could guide your group to a better solution. So crack the books, click the Net and switch on your brain.

1. Read the Web pages linked below. If you print out the files, underline the passages that you feel are the most important. If you look at the pages on the computer, copy sections you feel are important by dragging the mouse across the passage and copying / pasting it into a word processor or other writing software.

2. Note: Remember to write down or copy/paste the URL of the file you take the passage from so you can quickly go back to it if you need to prove your point.

3. Be prepared to focus what you've learned into an explanation answering:

   What are the main integration strategies used by schools and how were they meant to work?

   As with all social scientists, you will have to read between the lines to come to your interpretation.

Internet Resources

Use the Internet information linked below and these questions to guide your analysis of desegregation strategies:

1. What were the ideas behind busing and how did the strategy work out?
2. What were the ideas behind Magnet and how has the strategy worked out?
3. What are vouchers or 'school choice' and what are they supposed to accomplish?
4. What are charter schools and what are they supposed to accomplish?
5. What is racial isolation and how does it impact desegregation?
6. What's generally happening in terms of integration/ desegregation these days? What has brought it about?
7. Create a series of small clusters showing the main desegregation strategies and how they were meant to work.

• Charter Schools Overview, from the National Education Association
• The Changing Face of Racial Isolation and Desegregation, 1993
• Orfield Report Praises Boston Transfer Program, Education Week
• New Magnet School Policies Sidestep an Old Issue: Race, 1998
• Vouchers, Education Week, 2002
• Poll Finds Growing Support for School Choice, Education Week, 1997
• School Integration in Boston, by Lisa Cozzens
• School Desegregation, Education Week, 2002

Go to the Cause & Effect scaffold page to sharpen your ideas.