Authors’ piece frames new view on equity, invokes Brown v. Board of Education legacy for informing future policy

Last year, two scholars from The Ohio State University—one of them a College of Education alumnus—analyzed survey data from a national sample of 1,227 black and white college students to examine the frequency and nature of cross-racial interactions and their influence on students’ sense of belonging in college. Their subsequent paper, “Why Are All White Students Sitting Together in College? Impact of Brown v. Board of Education on Cross-Racial Interactions among Black and Whites,” pointed out that cross-racial interactions vary by race and frequent, meaningful interactions positively influence belonging, though the influence is greater for blacks than whites at predominately white institutions.

The authors, Royel M. Johnson, M.Ed. '11 EPOL, and Terrell L. Strayhorn, used the data to frame a new perspective on equity and invoke the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education for informing future policy, practice, and research. Read their piece, which was published in The Journal of Negro Education.