ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief account of the early research on segregation cited in the landmark US Supreme Court decision Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka of 1954, and summarizes thirty-five years of results of major empirical studies and scholarly commissions on the controversial question of the possible dependence of Black students’ learning on the student racial composition of schools. The inconsistency and inconclusiveness of research are traced from the early research to recent work that appears to present a reasonable resolution of the question.
