In studying the forces that divide Americans along racial lines, Yale sociologist Grace Kao examines two universal desires that bind us — relationship and love. Her new guide, “The Company We Keep,” explores exactly how teenagers form interracial friendships and romantic relationships.

Analyzing a dataset greater than 15,000 pupils from over 100 schools in the united states, Kao and her co-authors, Kara Joyner and Kelly Stamper Balisteri, unearthed that youth who attend diverse schools are far more most likely later on in life to befriend or date individuals of a various battle.

Kao, the IBM Professor of Sociology and chair of this Department of Sociology, recently talked to YaleNews about her research. The next has been condensed and modified.

You analyzed a huge dataset in researching the guide. Just exactly What had been your key findings?

You can find a complete lot of caveats, needless to say. The positive results of college variety on relationship are extremely strong for everybody, but more powerful for many combined teams than others. As an example, black colored girls attending diverse schools does not raise the probability that they’ll have a pal of the race that is different their education so it does for women of other events.

You based pursuit on information from the National Longitudinal research of Adolescent to Adult wellness. Which are the benefits of this dataset?

It’s a sample that is nationally representative of involving 90,000 adolescents who have been interviewed in college and 15,000 have been interviewed in the home — so it’s big. Continua a leggere →