Edward C. Banfield, former Shattuck Professor of Government and an expert on urban affairs, has decided to return to Harvard after three years at the University of Pennsylvania, partially because of a clash with radical students there.

A source close to Banfield said yesterday that his re-appointment as a professor of Government was definite, awaiting only the formalities of approval by the University's Governing Boards.

He will come back probably for the 1977 spring term, but possibly not until the following year, the source said.

"They approached me," Banfield, reached at his summer home in Vermont, said yesterday. "Dean Rosovsky first raised the question with me at the end of the term in early May."

No Comment

Rosovsky said yesterday there probably are positions open in the Government Department but declined to comment on the Banfield appointment.

Banfield said he would not comment on his decision because he has not "yet written a letter to the Provost at the University of Pennsylvania," which he said would be a proper step before announcing his departure.

When Banfield left Harvard in 1972, Penn offered him the equivalent of a university professorship, with the freedom to teach in any department and an increase in salary.

Banfield said he left because Penn offered him a job "that gave me the freedom to teach what I wanted when I wanted" and because "I felt 14 years, the time I spent at Harvard, was a long time to be in one place."

While at Penn, however, his classes were subject to protest and disruption, with some students claiming that his views on the problems of cities unfairly placed blame on poor blacks.

Bonnie Blustern, who was kicked out of Harvard in 1972 partly because of "intense personal harassment" of Richard J. Herrnstein, professor of Psychology, and is now a graduate student at Penn, led a protest against Banfield in the spring of 1974 that is one element in Banfield's decision to lease Penn.

"Racist of the Year"

Blustein said yesterday she and members of the Committee on Racism interrupted one of Banfield's classes at Penn to present him with a "Racist of the Year Award."

University officials tried Blustein this year for disrupting the class found her guilty, but suspended the sentence.

She certainly plagued me "Banfield and calling her change that his views are racist outrageous.