Intergroup Friendships: Integrated and Desegregated Schools in Northern Ireland

Abstract

The friendship choices of two hundred twenty-six 11- to 12-year-old students and one hundred fifty 14- to 15-year-old students in Northern Ireland were examined. The students attended a planned integrated school, a Protestant desegregated school, or a Catholic desegregated school. Fifty-two percent of the total sample was Protestant, and 48% was Catholic. In-group bias was the exception rather than the rule, in all 3 schools, and was exhibited most often by secondary-school students during the Ist months of their Ist year. Intergroup contact seemed to help foster cross-group relationships, but there was no evidence that any I type of school was more effective in this respect.