Segregation and School Violence

While research exploring the consequences of desegregation and resegregation for academic achievement and intergroup attitudes and behavior has been prolific, scant attention has been paid to the impact that school segregation differences has had on school violence. Using data from the state of Florida Department of Education and the U.S. Bureau of the Census, we attempt to adjudicate between competing hypotheses about the nature of a relationship between segregation and school violence: (1) that segregation is associated with increased school violence; and (2) that segregation is associated with decreased school violence, especially under conditions of racial inequality. Results from a multilevel analysis show that increased school district segregation has a substantive negative association with school violence, particularly in contexts of greater community inequality, consistent with Pettigrew's (1971) observations about the contact hypothesis. The implications of these findings are discussed.