Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Negro Community - 43. Institutions - 4. The Negro School and Negro Education
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chapter 43. Institutions 945
still lag far behind white children in education. There is a much stronger
tendenc)^ for Negroes than for whites to drop out of school at lower grades.
While the ratio of Negroes to whites in the first grade in the 18 Southern
states (1933-1934) is .631, the ratio drops to .141 in the eighth grade and
to .091 in the twelfth grade (Table 6). The ^‘holding power” of the Negro
school is low at all levels. The reasons for this are in the whole character
of the caste relation in the South. This tendency for Negroes to drop out
of school more than do whites stops at the college level. Of all high school
graduates over 25 years of age in the country (1940), a slightly greater
proportion of Negroes than of whites have gone to college (42.6 per cent
compared to 41.9 per cent).^^ Of course, a much smaller proportion of all
Negroes than of whites goes to college, but once Negroes have attained
high school graduation, they have a slightly better chance of going to
college. This reversal is probably due to the tremendous difficulties the
Negro child encounters in getting as far as high school graduation, to the
relative lack of opportunities for Negro high school graduates, and to the
relatively better opportunities for college-trained Negroes.*^
It is unnecessary to take up the Negro school in the North since it hardly
exists as a separate entity. Most of the Negro children in the North are
separated from white children because of a small amount of legal segrega-
tion, a moderate amount of forced illegal segregation, and a large amount
of coercive but not illegal separation (connected with housing segregation
and the system of gerrymandered districts and permits).’* But there is little
difference between Negro and white schools in the North either in quality
of instruction and facilities or in the content of the courses. What there is,
is due to the rapid migration of the Negroes to the North, which has caused
an undue over-crowding of schools and an over-burdening of teachers. But
this lag in adjusting facilities to increased enrollment would seem to carry
with it no discrimination, and would probably disappear shortly after the
end of large-scale migration. The teachers of Negro children are as well
trained as the teachers of white children, except possibly for the selection
which occurs when a white teacher avoids teaching in a school attended
almost entirely by Negro students.
There is practically no attention paid to Negro problems or Negro
students’ needs in the Northern school. Except for a few all-Negro colleges,
Negroes in Northern colleges are a small proportion of the student popu-
lation, and except for a certain amount of social ostracism, they are not
• See end of Chapter 13. The explanation is not that college enrollment is so much more
common in the North generally. The proportion of those over 25 who have had at least
one year of college is the same in the South as in the North (not including the Pacific or
Mountain states): 9.2 to 9.5. {Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940^ Pofulation^
Preliminary Release, Series P-xo, No. 8.)
* See Chapter 29, Section 6.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
