Psychology & Society, 2010, Vol. 3 (1), 92 ‐ 106 92 The Social Psychology of (De) segregation: Rigorously studied and poorly conceptualised BUHLE ZUMA University of Cape Town The social psychological study of desegregation has been guided by contact theory and championed by contact research for over fifty years. During this time great inroads have been made both in theory and methodology. This paper argues that notwithstanding these developments, social psychology has, to a large degree, left the meaning of ‘desegregation’ poorly conceptualised. The paper argues that this conceptual poverty can be traced back to the manner in which early social psychologists conceptualised segregation. Consequently, and through a ‘reductionist imperative’, social psychology equates intergroup contact with desegregation, which the paper argues is both historically and politically misinformed. In the South African context, such an understanding is a disservice to the people who suffered as a result of segregation that was at the centre of colonial and apartheid regimes. Scholarly debate on the meaning of desegregation is needed. After World War II, the study of intergroup relations was taken up by social psychology in the USA and was specifically championed by Contact Theory, the brain child of Gordon Allport, which he outlined in his text The Nature of Prejudice in 1954. At about the same time, and in fact even before Allport published his text (that would later become seminal in social psychology and contact studies) the Brown v. Board of Education case was underway before the Topeka Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruling on this case set the stage for a ‘social experiment’ (Forbes, 1997) for social psychology and specifically for Contact Theory. Leading social psychologists and other social scientists at the time of the Brown v. Board of Education case made a significant contribution (on behalf of social science) toward the ruling of the Supreme Court. The social scientific input made by social psychologists became known as the ‘Social Science Statement in Brown v. Board of Education’. Writing about the contested meanings of social psychology Ratele (2003) reminds us that “...definitions are never entirely neutral and innocent, because how a discipline is defined determines what it regards as worth studying, as well as which questions it asks and which answers it seeks. And the questions it asks and the answers it searches for serve as lenses through which it perceives and analyses objects, events, processes, interactions, and relationships. In general, a definition of a discipline directs the attention and activities of those working within it” (p. 11). How segregation and desegregation are understood and defined in social psychology and specifically in the area of intergroup relations is not a matter devoid of political