SUMMARY
The Civil Rights Project (formerly at Harvard University), the Greater Boston Civil Rights Coalition, the Center for Education Policy at UMass/Amherst, and the Suffolk University Law School Juvenile Justice Center held this education research and policy conference examining school segregation, student achievement, and access to higher education in metropolitan Boston. The conference brought together stakeholders to discuss the findings from the Metropolitan Boston Equity Initiative’s series of reports on racial change and inequalities in metropolitan Boston.
Background
The Metropolitan Boston Equity Initiative was a yearlong effort investigating racial change and the implications of such change for social and economic opportunity within the region’s diverse population. Conducted by the Civil Rights Project (formerly at Harvard University), and sponsored by the Foley Hoag Foundation, the Hyams Foundation, the Boston Foundation, John Hancock and the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Initiative aimed to:
- Generate a powerful series of reports on racial change and inequalities in metropolitan Boston, including analyses of positive public policy changes and discussions of alternative measures and visions for the future; and
- Stimulate a broad discussion among community groups, local and state leaders, the media, civil rights organizations, and researchers over the problems and possible solutions for issues raised in these reports.
Research included:
- We Don’t Feel Welcome Here: African Americans and Hispanics in Metro Boston by Josephine Louie (2004)
- Racial Equity and Opportunity in Metro Boston Job Markets by Nancy McArdle (2004)
- Asian Americans In Metro Boston: Growth, Diversity, and Complexity by Paul Watanabe, Michael Liu and Shauna Lo (2004)
- Race and the Metropolitan Origins Of Postsecondary Access to Four Year Colleges: The Case of Greater Boston by Joseph B. Berger, Suzanne M. Smith and Stephen P. Coelen (2004)
- Racial Segregation and Educational Outcomes in Metropolitan Boston by Chungmei Lee (2004)
- Beyond Poverty: Race and Concentrated-Poverty Neighborhoods in Metro Boston by Nancy McArdle (2003)
- Segregation in Neighborhoods and Schools: Impacts on Minority Children in the Boston Region by
John R. Logan, Deirdre Oakley, and Jacob Stowell (2003) - Segregation in the Boston Metropolitan Area at the End of the 20th Century by Guy Stuart (2000)
- Race, Place, and Opportunity: Racial Change and Segregation in the Boston Metropolitan Area, 1990-2000 by Nancy McArdle (2003)
- More than Money: The Spatial Mismatch Between Where Minorities Can Afford to Live and Where they Actually Reside by David Harris (Greater Boston Fair Housing Center) and Nancy McArdle
(The Civil Rights Project) (2004) - The Color of Money in Greater Boston: Patterns of Mortgage Lending and Segregated Housing at the Beginning of the New Century by Jim Campen (2004)
- The Anatomy of Segregation: How Racial Stereotypes and Housing Preferences Constrain Integration in the Multi-Ethnic Boston Metro Area by Tara Jackson (International Communications Research)
Court Decisions: