Education and Negro Attitudes
D. D. DROBA
University of North Dakota
IN THIS PAPER a report is being made on a study of the effect of education on attitudes toward the Negro which was made at the Ohio State University in the spring of 1931. A course on the Negro extending over a period of three months is being given each spring in the Department of Sociology. Students taking this course (the last one conducted by Professor Herbert A. Miller at that school) were used in the experiment.
For the purpose of measuring the above mentioned effect two methods were used. The first method consisted of a test of attitudes which was given to a class at the beginning of the course and also at the end of the course. The difference between the scores obtained on the two occasions was taken as a measure of the effect. In the second method scores obtained from the successive educational classes were compared. A change in attitude scores from class to class was considered to indicate a change in attitudes as affected by education in general.
For the measuring instrument a scale devised by Hinckley was used. The scale consists of sixteen statements, such as "It is possible for the white and Negro races to be brothers in Christ without becoming brothers-in-law," and "Inherently, the Negro and the white man are equal." Each statement is assigned a numerical value. These values range in the first form of the scale between 0.0 and 10.3, and in the second form of the scale between 0.5 and
( 138) 10.6. Different scale values and different statements are used in the two forms of the scale, but the scores obtained from the two forms are comparable.
Form A of the scale was given to a group of about seventy students taking the course on the Negro. The blanks were distributed by Professor Miller. Instructions were to put a check mark if the student agreed with the statement, and to put a cross if he disagreed with the statement. If the student could not decide about a statement, he could mark it with a question mark. The students were also asked to fill in their names if they wanted to and to indicate what their educational status was.
Form B of the scale was given at end of the course. Instructions were similar to those used in connection with the first form of the scale.
In scoring, only the endorsed statements were taken into consideration. An individual score was the median of the scale values of statements checked plus. This was deter-mined graphically by the aid of a line placed at the bottom of the scale. A vertical stroke was placed on the line at the scale value of each statement indorsed. The median was then easily read off from the line.
Group averages were calculated for both form A and form B of the scale. Of those participating in the experiment on both occasions only thirty students signed their names and thus could be identified for purposes of comparison. The averages, together with the standard errors of averages and the standard deviations of the distributions, are shown in Table I.
The difference between the averages is .58 and the standard error of the difference, as shown in the table, is .48. It is evident that the standard error of the difference is almost as large as the difference itself, thus indicating only a suggestive tendency of change in attitudes. The thirty students retested at the end of the course tended to appear, on the average, to be more favorable toward the Negro than when tested at the beginning of the course.
Some difference exists also between the variations of attitudes at the beginning and at the end of the course. The difference is .20 indicating that the course tended to cause a greater variety of attitudes toward the Negro. There appeared to be more extremely unfavorable and extremely favorable cases at the end of the course than there were at the beginning of the course.
The distribution of scores before and after the course is graphically shown in the Figure. The Figure seems to portray the same tendencies already indicated with respect to changes in averages and dispersions.
In the second method used for measuring the effect of education on attitudes toward the Negro scores obtained from the successive educational classes were compared. For this purpose only form A of the scale, or scores obtained at the beginning of the course were used. Three educational groups were found in the class: juniors, seniors, and graduates. For each of these groups an average score was calculated and recorded in Table II.
A distinct tendency may be noted in the table for the students to become more favorably inclined toward the Negro as they ascend the educational scale. The number
( 141) of cases is small, particularly for the graduates and this fact does not warrant any hard and fast conclusions, but the general trend is there, confirming the finding obtained by the first method of measuring attitude change. A similar tendency is noticeable with respect to the variations in attitudes. The sigmas increase considerably from one group to the other as seen in Table II. Education in general tends to produce a greater variety of attitudes, a wider range of different dispositions, or a greater number of extremely unfavorable or extremely favorable opinions about the Negro.
In the group tested seven Negro students were present. These were asked to express their attitudes toward the whites by substituting the word `white' for the word `Negro' in the statements. The average score of these seven students was found to be 8.45 which is higher than any group average of the whites, indicating that Negro students are more favorable toward the whites than the whites toward the Negroes.
The following conclusions can be drawn from the above findings:
1. A course on the Negro given at the Ohio State University tends to make the white students slightly more favorable toward the Negro.
2. The same course tends to make the attitudes of the white students toward the Negro somewhat more variable.
3. Education at the Ohio State University, as indicated by a change in attitudes from year to year, tends to develop favorable attitudes toward the Negro.
4. Education, as indicated by a change in attitudes from year to year, tends to cause the attitudes of the white students toward the Negro to be more variable.
5. The seven Negro students taking the course were found to be more favorable toward the whites than the white students were toward the Negro.