School Desegregation Research: New Directions in Situational Analysis

Abstract

The desegregation situation is keynote theme of following I Each of them touches on a different dimension of situation: historical, temporal, spatial. But reader, perusing essays with situation in mind, should remember that desegregation situation should not be inter preted literally. Authorities and adults certainly, school-age children probably, are influenced by their awareness of a sequence of past and future situations. Some may even operate with William James's (1890, p. 608) notion of the specious that has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in instant of becoming, thus reducing potency of present situation. Others may be dancing to a slower tempo of change, thus becoming more responsive to present situation. Whatever perceived tempo, many must share view that future may reverse direction of past. Some may see that new future direction as unswerving, unending, or long-lasting; others may see it as short-lived. And it is through attention to phenomenological description of desegregation that these issues can be explored; a theme that is considered in several of following chapters.