Engaging Suburban Students in Dialogues on Diversity in a Segregated Metropolitan Area

Segregation and Diversity

Many American suburbs are changing in their racial and ethnic composition, from “segregated” to “segregated and diverse.” Whereas once they were portrayed as homogeneous havens for White residents, today they remain largely White, but with increasing diversity within them. Taken together, segregation and diversity increase inequalities between and within suburbs and cities (Denton & Massey, 1991; Frey, 2001a, 2001b; Hanlon, Vicino, & Short, 2006; Massey & Denton, 1988; Orfield, 2013).

Suburbs are strategically situated for addressing diversity as an issue. They are the places where most Americans reside and have disproportionate resources in society. They are at the center of a society that is undergoing racial and ethnic transformation, and actions there have implications elsewhere. They have institutional infrastructure—such as governments and schools—with authority for implementation, something which is absent from their bordering neighborhoods (Frey & Gerverdt, 1998; Iceland, 2004; Hamilton, 1999).

“Educational justice” is ideally positioned as an issue around which to organize. Suburban schools were once considered centers of educational excellence, but changes in population composition are increasing inequalities and incidents among students (Tefera, 2011). “Achievement gaps” are growing between majority and minority students in suburban schools nationwide, as are incidents in buildings, including reports of teacher and administrator inexperience in handling interracial classroom situations and cafeteria segregation, racist graffiti, name-calling, and physical intimidation (Warren, 2014).

In the United States, efforts to challenge residential segregation and educational inequalities usually originate with government authorities outside of municipalities, such as court-ordered bussing and desegregation plans whose politics are volatile and outcomes are questionable and subsequent court decisions which do not necessarily reduce segregation. Despite a history of desegregation efforts by government authorities and an increase in minority students in some suburban school districts, segregation and disparities grow at the metropolitan level (Orfield, 2013).

But what happens when suburban schools and municipalities organize for diversity and dialogue at the local level? In contrast to efforts that are imposed on them from outside and engender opposition, what happens when they themselves involve people in planning programs, organizing groups, providing services, and other institutional initiatives of their own choosing? And, what happens when young people play important roles in the process?

Today’s suburban youth are open to diversity and, as adolescents, trying to construct a stable identity that balances self-interest with concern for the welfare of others. They attach special meaning to social justice, an abstract idea which they ground in issues of fairness and respect for differences, with special concern for prejudice and discrimination in their relationships (Gurin, Zúñiga, & Nagda, 2013; Kohut et al., 2010; Seider, 2009).

Empirical studies supplemented by analyses of Census Bureau data find that these young people are more receptive than earlier generations to open expressions of racial and ethnic identities and interracial relationships. They are more apt to believe that social change is desirable and possible, that change comes from people getting together at a localized level rather than by changing policies and laws of the larger society, and that schools and communities are salient vehicles for collective action (Olander et al., 2007; Taylor, 2014).

Young people are experts on what happens in their schools. They have insider information about academic issues, such as books which do not represent them; school practices, such as insensitive dress codes; school culture, such as self-segregation in the cafeteria; and teachers, who are untrained to handle racial issues in the classroom. In contrast to the image that youth are “disengaged from democracy” (Keeter & Taylor, 2009), they are eager to participate, if only there were opportunities to do so (Checkoway & Richards-Schuster, 2006).

There is relatively little literature on issues framed in this way. There are scholars who focus on increasing diversity and dialogue, but not on segregation; on challenging segregation, but not through dialogue; on metropolitan justice as a societal issue, but not at the local level; or on the roles of adults who care about young people, but do not necessarily engage them in the process (Checkoway, 2011).

This article assumes that suburban schools are a vehicle for addressing diversity and discrimination at the local level. It examines what happens when a school district, municipal agency, and a university collaborate for this purpose, at a time when many school districts are faced with issues like these and searching for information about how to proceed.

Metropolitan Detroit

Metropolitan Detroit is a highly segregated area. In 1950, the city and suburbs shared in overall national prosperity and particular productivity of automobile production. Between then and now, the city fell from 2,000,000 to 710,000 residents, the suburbs increase in population, and the pattern of segregation grows. Today, the city is at least 85% Black and the suburbs 85% White.

Segregation in metropolitan Detroit is interrelated with inequalities in poverty, race, and other forces in society. The suburbs are among the richest in the nation, its residents include the highest income families living in the most expensive houses, and its children attend schools with excellent reputations and score at the top in standardized tests. Detroit has the highest unemployment and poverty rates in the United States; one of three residents live in poverty, and more than half of the children are impoverished.

Although suburban schools boast about their resources and academic achievement, neighborhood schools decline, and test scores are so low that experts say that they would have done better if they had guessed (Seelye, 2011).

At this writing, metropolitan inequalities are worsening. Between 2000 and 2010, Detroit lost one fourth of its population, leaving behind abandoned buildings, inadequate services, and low-performing schools. The disparities—in housing quality, educational resources, health status, and other measures—are staggering, while the suburbs continue to grow (Seelye, 2011).

“Divided Detroit” is usually explained in terms of “white flight to the suburbs and black neighborhoods left behind.” In this explanation, White families moved to the suburbs for better housing and schools, while Black families remained in neighborhoods with abandoned houses and inadequate services (Farley et al., 1977; Farley et al., 2002).

In another explanation, however, metropolitan segregation resulted from decisions by the automobile industry and other for-profit institutions to leave the city, by bankers and builders to invest in suburban development, and by government agencies to support discriminatory practices, restrictive covenants, and exclusionary zoning. Builders constructed a half-mile long concrete wall to separate Whites and Blacks near the suburban border and, once built, government agencies guaranteed mortgages there (Clotfelder, 1977; Darden et al, 1987; Darden & Kamel, 2000; Farley, 1975; Farley, Danziger, & Holzer, 2002; Kenyon, 2004; Powell, 2005; Sugrue, 2005).

Courts have played a special role in school segregation. When a district judge decided that bussing was a reasonable approach to addressing school segregation in metropolitan Detroit, a resultant Supreme Court case overturned the decision and concluded that a district court could not order a desegregation plan between the city and suburbs. This decision opened door for Whites to flee to the suburbs without concern about compliance with mandatory school integration policies (Orfield et al., 2010).

Farmington and Farmington Hills

Farmington and Farmington Hills are suburbs in Oakland County, Michigan, an affluent county located northwest of downtown Detroit. Although these suburbs were almost exclusively White in 1950, and remain largely White today, they are increasing in residents of African and Asian descent, especially South Asians and Indians, in part because they offer desirable housing, occupational opportunities, and quality schools.

Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity

Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity in Metropolitan Detroit was established by the University of Michigan to involve teen-age youth—of African, Asian, European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern descent—in intergroup dialogues and community initiatives, such as metropolitan tours, residential retreats, community action projects, and public policy initiatives. The program was conceived as a way of involving schools and communities in every stage of the process (Checkoway, 2009; Thompson, Brett, & Behling, 2004).

Farmington and Farmington Hills were the first suburbs to participate in the program. First, they composed a group of suburban youth who met among themselves to practice their listening and communications skills, explore their own social identities, and discuss their preconceptions of other racial and ethnic groups. Then, they were paired with neighborhood youth in intergroup dialogues facilitated by college students and supervised by faculty members. They shared stories of growing up in segregation, compared similarities and differences, and discussed contemporary issues.

They participated in metropolitan tours of areas that they had never seen even though only a few miles away. They visited civil rights landmarks in neighborhoods, stopped at the wall built to separate the races, and continued into the suburbs. They attended a residential retreat at the university and planned joint projects dealing with diversity and discrimination, such as a march against racism down Detroit’s busiest street.

What Matters Most?

One case study is insufficient for drawing broad conclusions, but the following observations are possible nonetheless.

We observe that suburban students are aware of segregation and willing to communicate and collaborate with others who are different from themselves. Given an opportunity, they participate in intergroup dialogues, community action projects, and leadership activities designed to challenge discrimination, at the school and community levels (Aldana, 2014; Torres-Fleming, 2010).

This participation contrasts with contemporary media portrayals of youth as “disengaged from democracy” (Kurth-Schai, 1988; Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, & Delli Carpini, 2006). When the dialogues are done, some of them continue to meet, talk openly about their own social identities, about race and ethnicity as forces in their lives, and take action against segregation. They organize for social action, plan programs of their choosing, and participate in public policy. This is not new, for young people have a history of mobilization (Branch, 2006; Garrow, 2004; Halberstam, 1999; McAdam, 1988), and youth organizing for educational justice is on the rise (Dyrness, 2011; Levine, 2007; Oakes & Rogers, 2006; Su, 2009; Warren, 2014).

We observe that some adults are allies to young people. Parents, teachers, school and municipal officials, and university faculty and students willingly support their efforts. They encourage and nurture them—and also sign their permission slips, excuse them from classes, and drive them to community meetings. These adults are not necessarily typical of their peers, but there is reason to expect that if student numbers were to grow, adult involvement would increase.

The suburbs described here have substantial resources, legal authority, and administrative control over their environment. They are political units with their own governments and municipal officials to manage their own affairs, in contrast with nearby neighborhoods that lack such authority. Officials speak of their “sense of community” and “can do” culture that contrasts with those who believe that problems are beyond their reach.

The school district in the study used the program as a vehicle to build institutional capacity. They did not view the work as an event, but rather as a way to accomplish their core mission, strengthen student and teacher development, establish curricular and cocurricular structures, and build constituency support for diversity and dialogue over the long haul.

The school district and municipal agencies were able to collaborate with a university in accordance with campus–community partnership principles in which there were ongoing communications and mutual benefits. University participants were there to serve as their partners, rather than as professional elites there to study them.

Finally, the youth dialogues program built a foundation for subsequent work. It provided students with common experiences, lasting relationships, and interpersonal skills for communication and collaboration across their differences. The dialogues established a new level of mutual understanding and the basis for going “from intergroup dialogue to community change,” by joining together and taking action.

Suburbs as Agents of Social Justice?

Suburban schools are strategically situated to serve as agents of social justice. At a time when segregation and diversity are increasing, these schools have more diversity than in other municipalities and a number of residents who are willing to take action.

Suburban student will participate in intergroup dialogues if there are opportunities to do so even if segregation still limits them. Teachers are aware of the importance of diversity even if they lack experience with its facilitation. Administrators are aware of increasing achievement gaps and school incidents even if they are unsure how to proceed (Khalil, 2012; Shah, 2011; Thomas, 2013).

These schools also have disproportionate resources and institutional capacity for responding to population changes, and the ability to put sustainable structures in place. If “dialogues on race” were to happen in society, suburbs are the likeliest place for them to happen.

This situation seems ironic, for suburbs are often viewed as bastions to which White people fled to escape diversity that threatened the quality of education. These places—shaped by earlier suburbanization—were often sought for their “distance from diversity.” That was then, however, this situation is now.

The suburbs described here have embraced diversity and dialogue, and if a few other suburbs were to band together for this purpose—for example, Alexandria, Arlington, Brookline, Evanston, Oak Park, and Shaker Heights—it would be extraordinary.

Surely, there are obstacles to this approach in a society whose suburban residents are fiercely resistant to diversity unless courts and outside institutions require them to change their practices, and in which external agents of segregation—such as economic disinvestment and housing discrimination—are powerful forces against change.

In the final analysis, however, these suburbs show that there are schools that will create change if the conditions are right. If these suburbs are exceptional rather than typical, it only amplifies their significance (Niedt, 2013; Seider, 2009).

There is no scientific evidence that the next “social justice movement” will originate in the suburbs, but there is no a priori reason why not.