Students of all races feel safer in ethnically diverse middle schools, UCLA researchers report

Middle school students from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds feel safer, less lonely and less bullied if they attend schools that are more diverse, UCLA researchers report today in the journal Child Development.The study also found that students in diverse schools — those with multiple ethnic groups of relatively equal size — reported more tolerance and less prejudice toward students of other ethnicities and believe teachers treated all students more fairly and equally.Jaana Juvonen, a UCLA professor of psychology and the research ’s lead author, said the study is the first to show such a wide range of personal and social benefits for students of all races and ethnicities from attending ethnically diverse schools.“When ethnic groups are of relatively equal size, there may be more of a balance of power,” said Juvonen, who has conducted research on school bullying and bullies for more than 20 years. “One or more large ethnic groups will be less likely to exert their influence over one or more small ethni c groups.”The researchers studied more than 4,300 sixth-grade students in 26 urban middle schools in Southern and Northern California with varying degrees of ethnic diversity. Nearly all of the students in the study were from middle-income and working-class families, and they primarily came from four ethnic groups: African American, Latino, Asian-American and white.In the six schools that were the most diverse, there was no single ethnic group that constit...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news