A Note on the Measurement of Racial Integration in Schools

Abstract

This note is concerned with the measurement of racial integration of schools in a way that permits a simple aggregation of the measure to sets of schools such as school districts. The procedure can be applied to institutions other than schools, but one prefers a more specific terminology. There are several standard procedures for measuring integration, but the dissimilarity index appears to be more popular than any other index. The objective of this note is to show that there are some simple measures derived from information theory which are superior in this respect, and to illustrate their use by means of data on the elementary schools of the Chicago public school system for the years 1963-1969. Write n for the total number of schools in the city and w1 for the number of white students of the ith school, measured as a fraction, of the total number, of students' of that school. Hence 1- wi is the nonwhite proportion of the school's student body.