Diversity expands students' comfort zones

LOS ANGELES - California sixth-graders who attend racially diverse schools feel safer, less lonely and less picked on than their peers at more homogenous schools, according to a new study out of University of California, Los Angeles. But it's not enough for diversity to exist on campus, according to the study, published in the journal Child Development.

In some schools where the overall student population was diverse, students' classes did not reflect the school as a whole. In those schools, students of all races had less confidence that teachers treat everyone fairly, and were less likely to say they would eat lunch, dance with, sit on the bus next to or visit the home of someone of a different race.

"When kids have less racial exposure in their classes than the diversity in the school ... they're less likely to cross that racial boundary," says UCLA education professor Sandra Graham, the study's co-author.