Public opinion, race, and levels of desegregation in five Southern school districts.

Many of the nation's school systems that were once desegregated have resegregated by race and socioeconomic status-some more so than others. We investigate the relationship between public opinion about school diversity and levels of resegregation in five Southern school districts with varying amounts of resegregation: Charlotte, NC; Louisville, KY; Nashville, TN; Raleigh, NC; and Rock Hill, SC. Drawing upon case studies of the five districts and a unique public opinion dataset of over 5000 respondents, we find the relationship between attitudes toward diverse education and levels of desegregation strengthens when we control for respondents' race. In all five locales, we find a strong positive correspondence between Whites' attitudes and actual levels of desegregation. At the same time, we observe a negative relationship between Black respondents' attitudes toward school diversity and desegregation levels. We explore possible reasons for these relationships.