Douglas S. Gatlin

Policy Support Within a Target Group: The Case of School Desegregation

This study empirically tests three theoretical approaches to explaining specific support for a policy output among members of its target group. The utilitarian model posits support as a function of objective costs and benefits to the individual stemming directly from the policy. The attitudinal model relates specific support to diffuse predispositions rooted in socialization. The perceptual model holds that specific support derives from beliefs about the character of the political decision process by which the policy was formulated. Tests of these three approaches are based on survey data on specific support for school district desegregation plans among a large sample of black and white parents of public school children in Florida. In both subsamples, the utilitarian approach explained very little of the variance in support, but the attitudinal and perceptual models were corroborated. Implications of these findings are drawn for desegregation policy making and for public policy theory.

Metropolitan School Desegregation: Practical Remedy or Impractical Ideal?

School desegregation has become an increas ingly important issue in non-Southern metropolitan areas. The absence of significant residential desegregation in the suburbs and the concentration of the black population in central cities make effective school desegregation difficult, if not impossible, without consolidated planning for the entire metropolitan region. Cross-busing between central cit ies and suburbs may raise stiff resistance among white parents whose children would be transferred to city schools. An analysis of areawide desegregation in Duval County, Florida, suggests that suburban diffusion of the white population does not in itself constitute a barrier to consolidated planning. A judicious application of desegregation plan features for the entire metropolitan region can produce satisfactory and equitable results.