School integration and quality education are examined in this paper in the context of public school desegregation. Specifically, the paper provides an overview of the role the courts have played historically in advancing toward quality integrated education. Following the overview, the impact of court rulings relative to the conduct of field-based research and educational policy decision-making in the midwestern United States is analyzed in reports on two field-based research projects. One of the studies assessed students' perceptions of intergroup relations and principles involved in social change incident to court-mandated school desegregation in Indianapolis, Indiana. The other study attempted to identify explanations of disproportionality among black and male student"disrupters" and promising school practices and conditions which help to mediate the problem. As both studies, and others reported in the literature, make it clear that there is still much to be learned about desegregation and intervention strategies before desegregation can be translated into quality integrated education, a field-based research model is offered which is designed to help in this task by narrowing the gap between theory and practice. And finally, strategies are suggested for effecting changes which would foster quality integrated schools. (CMG)