THE EFFECT OF RACE ON PEER EVALUATION AND PREFERENCE IN PRIMARY GRADE CHILDREN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY1

The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes of students in the primary grades with regard to the learning ability, school behavior, and social desirability as classmates of white and Negro children. Subjects were 120 first and second graders at an all white, an all Negro, and an integrated school. In individual interviews, subjects were shown pairs of sketches of classroom events taking place in predominantly white and predominantly Negro classes and were asked to make judgments about the academic achievement, niceness, school behavior, friendliness, and general desirability of the children in the pictured classes. White subjects showed a striking preference for predominantly white classes, whereas Negro subjects were less consistent. Of these, some preferred the white classrooms, some the Negro classrooms, and others showed no preference at all. Test-retest reliability over a four-week interval was .63 for the entire sample.