A Seat at That Table: Intergroup Contact and Social Mobility for People of Colo

Racial residential segregation continues to be an issue throughout various areas across the United States, "Studies suggest that residential segregation by race, while on the decline still persists at high levels in most of US metropolitan areas" (Dawkins 2005:545). Research has shown that racial residential segregation increases the likelihood of difficulties within education, employment, health, and the criminal justice system for people of color. Scholars have shown that racial residential segregation affects people of color at a higher rate than their white counterparts (Adelman 2005, Britton and Goldsmith 2013, Charles 2003, Hall et al. 2015, Timberlake 2002). Due to neighborhood segregation, the potential of intergroup contact between different racial groups is greatly limited. Scholars have discussed the idea of increasing intergroup contact between racial groups in order to improve race relations, which in turn can have a positive effect on segregated communities (De Jesus et al. 2014, Fossett 2006, Johnson and Jacobson 2005, Lum and Jacob 2012, Semyonov and Glikman 2008, Tropp, 2006). This study's research question is: how does intergroup contact affect social mobility among people of color? When discussing mobility, I am looking at one's ability to move into a higher income community, ability to access key social networks, attend better schools and access higher education, obtain employment and career opportunities, and lastly decrease chances of judicial system supervision. In order to gather data for this research, I conducted 15 face to face interviews with individuals of color from the cities of Bridgeport and New Haven Connecticut. According to the U.S Census as of July of 2016, Bridgeport, CT had a population size of 145,936 (Census 2016). The median household income of Bridgeport CT is $41,801and 22.9 percent of the population are living in poverty (Census 2016) New Haven, CT had a population of 129,934 as of July 2016. (Census 2016) The median household income in New Haven is $37,192 with 26.6 percent of persons living in poverty (Census 2016). According to the Data USA website, Bridgeport has 39.3 percent of the population that identify as having a Hispanic origin. Those who identify as black make up 33.1 percent of the population and 21.3 percent identify as white. The remainder of the individuals within Bridgeport identify as Asian, Multiracial or other (DataUSA 2015). In comparison to Bridgeport CT, New Haven's largest identifying racial group are blacks at 32.5 percent. The next largest group are whites at 31.3 percent of the population and those who identify as Hispanic make up 28.1 percent of the population. Those who Identify as Asian, Multiracial, Native American, Pacific Islander or other make up the remainder of New Havens population (DataUSA 2015).