Achievement

Leslie Seay, a trainee from the Department of Education, is studying social interaction across ethnic lines among 6th grade public school children by observing seating patterns during lunch. She developed new ways to apply "desegregation indices" (a method used in other disciplines working with large samples) to her small samples. Her analyses documented a high degree of ethnic segregation across 8 consecutive days and determined which ethnic groups would need to move to create maximum integration. She recently presented her findings at a symposium at the Society for Research on Child Development. Although the only graduate student on a panel of established researchers, Leslie did an outstanding job. She will be first author on an empirical journal article in preparation.