Research by Siwei Cheng and Yu Xie and indicates that students who attend larger high schools have a lower likelihood of forming interracial friendships. Xie says these results may shed light on relationship formation in other social contexts as well — that is, larger communities (including online communities) may reduce social integration by allowing individuals to fully exercise their preexisting preferences on friend characteristics, including race. Their research was published in the [*Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/10/1303748110.abstract?sid=5636e3c7-8f22-4457-b258-1c9fa01ca79f).

More about Cheng and Xie find high school size effects likelihood of interracial friendships >