The objective of this study was to discover what has happened as a result of school desegregation. The research was guided by a major premise that the behavior of students in schools is linked to the social environment from which they derive. Hence the research encompassed the total community as a setting of the differences between blacks and whites as well as the specific neighborhoods from which students come. Contrast was provided through examining two high schools with rather different student populations and the 9th and 12th grades in each. The facts are that the school authorities are conscientiously attempting to achieve an equitable racial distribution, and in the two high schools under observation the official policy is to suppress any discriminatory practice. The absence of serious overt tensions or concern is neither a conspiracy of silence nor a lack of a potential for racial disturbance. The apparent quiet exists because students have created a parallel system based on racial identification which effectively isolates the two groups, at least sufficiently to minimize the possibility of overt eruption, although that is an unintended consequence rather than a major explanation for the observed groupings. Furthermore, this biracial structuring is tacitly accepted by the staff in a variety of ways. (Author/JM)