Early interracial experience compounds into better jobs and earnings later

Evidence

Such emotions often derive from no prior experience with the outgroup. Black and white high school students who had the most favorable earlier interracial experience were more positive toward the other race (Patchen 1982). Thus, intergroup contact and its effects are cumulative—we live what we learn. Braddock (1989) found that black graduates of segregated high schools were significantly less likely later to work with whites. Since jobs with white co-workers have better pay and promotions, this result helps to explain why black graduates of interracial schools do better in later life than those from segregated schools (Braddock 1989, Braddock et al 1984, Braddock & McPartland 1987). — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 94

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to school desegregation policy literature and to arguments about cumulative advantage/multiplier effects in sociology. — connects to: Multiracial identity research can shift from a deficit frame to a strengths frame. — Tatiana I. Zamora and Amado M. Padilla, Making sense of conflicting messages of…, 45
• SEED: Article angle: ‘We live what we learn’ — how early contact compounds into labor market outcomes, and why segregated schooling quietly taxes a lifetime of earnings.