The problem addressed by this study was that of determining whether significant differences existed among selected apprehensions of black and white teachers in twelve Illinois School Districts with operative staff desegregation programs.

The major assumption of this study was that both black and white teachers have apprehensions related to teaching in schools which have student and staff populations predominately of the opposite race. Three hypotheses were formulated in order to investigate the problem. Data were collected via a questionnaire which was administered to 2,250 teachers.

The selected apprehensions were tabulated, and the scores were tested utilizing the chi-square test for independence. The probabilities for the events were reported at the 0.01 level.

The findings indicated that both black and white teachers were apprehensive about teaching in schools with populations predominately of the opposite race. The data further revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in the choice of descriptive words used by black and white respondents to identify individuals of the opposite racial groups that they would be most willing to associate with.

Further analysis of the data suggests that blacks as a group were more apprehensive about their relationships in the school setting with members of the opposite racial group.