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Do Teens "Clique" With Diversity?

by Steve Crabtree

Cliques are a part of everyday life in most high schools, to the advantage of some teens and the consternation of others. But when race is a driving factor in the formation of teens' social groups, teens run the risk of developing racist attitudes that they may carry with them for life.

The most recent Gallup Youth Survey* sought to investigate teenagers' perceptions of interracial interaction in their schools. Teens were first asked how many of their own friends are from a racial or ethnic background different from their own. Overall, 17% of teens say they have "a lot" of friends from other racial or ethnic groups, while 50% say they have "a few" friends and 31% say they have no friends from other groups. Nonwhite teens were more likely than white teens to say they have a lot of friends from other racial or ethnic groups -- 27% vs. 12%, respectively.

Simple odds can partially explain this difference -- even if minority teens preferred to hang around with members of their own racial or ethnic groups, there may be fewer people in those groups from which to select friends. However, that's not a tendency found in teens' observations of their parents' social activities: When asked whether their parents spend any free time with adults of another race, 50% of white teens say yes, compared to 50% of nonwhite teens.

Teen Perceptions of Social Integration at School

Furthermore, if teens' likelihood to socialize with other races was driven primarily by the availability (or lack thereof) of other students of their own race, then white students would be less likely than other students to hang out with members of other races simply because there are plenty of other whites for them to choose from.

Thankfully, that kind of overt social segregation doesn't seem to hold sway in America's schools -- at least according to teens' perceptions. The survey asked teens about racial dynamics in their schools. Specifically, teens were asked whether students in each of four racial/ethnic groups -- white, black, Asian, and Hispanic -- tend to be friends with teens of other racial or ethnic groups, or whether they tend to hang out only with other teens of their own race or ethnicity.

Overall, the differences among the groups that Gallup asked about weren't large, and whites aren't generally perceived to be less likely than other groups to have friends of other races or ethnicities. Overall, two in three teens say that whites in their schools hang out with students from other backgrounds -- similar to the number who say the same about blacks, Asians, and Hispanics.

Regional Differences

As discussed in the first article in this series (see "How Well Integrated Are Teens?" in Related Items), responses from teens living in the West indicate that teens in this region perceive their schools and neighborhoods to be more integrated than those in other areas, while responses from those in the Northeast suggest their schools and neighborhoods are less integrated relative to the size of their minority populations. Are teens in more integrated regions of the country more likely to perceive social integration at their schools?

The Youth Survey data do offer some evidence in support of this idea: Teens living in the Northeast are somewhat less likely than those living in other regions -- particularly the West -- to say members of each racial/ethnic group tend to hang out with members of the other groups.

Bottom Line

The fact that about two-thirds of American teens say they have at least a few friends of other races or ethnic backgrounds is encouraging, as is the fact that most teens perceive that students in each major racial/ethnic group tend to mix with students of other backgrounds. While a teen's particular race doesn't seem to have much bearing on his or her perceptions of racial interactions at school, the level of integration where he or she lives might, suggesting that the social patterns that kids develop at school tend to mirror those of the larger environment.

*The Gallup Youth Survey is conducted via an Internet methodology provided by Knowledge Networks, using an online research panel that is designed to be representative of the entire U.S. population. The current questionnaire was completed by 517 respondents, aged 13 to 17, between Aug. 1 and Aug. 29, 2003. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points.


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