Correlates of Racial Attitudes Among White High School Students.

White tenth graders in eight tokenly desegregated suburban high schools comprised the sample. A number of hypotheses were tested, all of which examine aspects of the relationship between racial attitudes and three sets of independent variables; (1) the ascribed roles and statuses which white students bring with them into the school setting; (2) the statuses he achieves within that context; and (3) the totality of his inter-racial experiences. The single major dependent variable was the students' attitudes toward a busing program which transported black students to their schools. Results show: (1) that white students who experienced equal status contact with blacks prior to the busing program and those who associated with the bused students in school activities were more likely to have positive feelings about the busing program; and (2) contact with bused students in the classroom was not related to tolerant attitudes. In general, the evidence supports the contention that the negative effects of status factors are stronger than the positive effects of cross-racial association. (TL)