Effects of School Organizational Structure on Interracial Friendships in Middle Schools

Friendship and social interaction with outgroup members.

“…First, is the mere presence of an outgroup member within one's social network sufficient for improving contact experiences with novel outgroup members? There is some reason to doubt that cross-group friendships always improve contact experiences (Damico, Bell-Nathaniel, & Green, 1981), particularly when someone has only a few cross-group friends with whom they are not very close. Second, does crossgroup friendship improve social interactions with outgroup members whom the perceiver has never met before?…”