Networks Among Black Studies Professors

1
Networks Among Black Studies Professors

• Fabio Rojas
• Department of Sociology
• Indiana University

2
Black Studies Discipline in Formation

• For the last five years, Ive been working on the
  evolution of Black Studies programs.
• See my conditionally accepted book manuscript
  From Black Power to Black Studies. (Johns Hopkins
  Press)
• Articles at www.fabiorojas.com
• The history of Black Studies allows us to answer
  important questions about the academys response
  to social movements.

3
Discipline in Formation

• The evolution of Black Studies also provides data
  on the formation of new disciplines.
• How is a new discipline created from other
  disciplines?

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The Hypothesis

• Black Studies is an interdiscipline
• What is an interdiscipline?
• An academic community that is strongly integrated
  with other disciplines.
• In contrast, a discipline is self-contained.

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Let Me Elaborate a Little

• If you look at central disciplines, such as
  English or philosophy, you notice that they have
  their own academic units, elite training (PhD
  programs) and certification (the journals and
  presses).
• In contrast, the interdiscipline is not socially
  closed it either teaches, trains, or certifies
  in other disciplines. It has a distinct
  institutional identity, but is deeply rooted in
  other fields.

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What are some examples?

• Disciplines English, philosophy, civil
  engineering.
• Interdisciplines Black Studies, public policy,
  cognitive science, American studies
• Research communities network studies, artificial
  intelligence, medieval studies.

7
How am I going to show that Black Studies is an
interdiscipline?

• Use publicly available data on Black Studies
  professors
• Analyze survey data that I collected.
• This data will show that Black Studies recruits
  and is socially connected to other disciplines.

8
Institutional Data

• Ill keep this brief so I can get to the network
  data
• Black Studies has some disciplinary features
• Journals, degree programs, and even a few Ph.D.
  programs.

9
But it is interdisciplinary

• Most professors recruited from other fields.
• They tend to publish in other disciplinary
  journals.
• They teach many, many courses in departments
  other than Black Studies.

10
Lets Get to Networks

• You can look also look at the informal structure
  of an academic group.
• One would hypothesize that disciplines would be
  more socially open than other academic groupings.

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Disciplines and Social Closure

• Members of an academic discipline should have
  common training, institutional histories, and
  ideology. Therefore, they should be more likely
  to cooperate with each other, than outsiders.
• The interdiscipline, in contrast, is socially
  connected to other academic communities.

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Lets visualize it!
Discipline
Black Studies
Interdiscipline
Black Studies
13
The Data The Survey of Issues in Africana Studies

• In 2004-2005, every single professor of Black
  Studies received an invitation to participate.
  Check it out ! www.africanasurvey.indiana.edu
• 200 professors participated in the study.
• Survey included a battery of network items.

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The network items

• Respondents were asked the following questions
• Important professional matters
• Career decision
• Scholarly feedback
• Conflict

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Some Descriptive Statistics

• 140 people provided information about
  importance network
• Average of ties in importance network is 9.63
• Almost 1400 people mentioned.

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First Question

• How often do Black Studies professors contact
  others in their own program to discuss
  important matters?
• Answer 1 15 of alters were in the same
  program.
• Answer 2 Average ego-neighborhood has 9.6
  people in it, 8.1 are outside the persons
  program.

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Second Question

• How often do Black Studies professors contact
  other Black Studies professors in regard to
  important matters?
• Answer 1 25 of alters are not Black Studies
  professors at all.
• Answer 2 Average person has 9.6 in
  neighborhood, 7.13 are not in any program.

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Lets investigate a little more

• Who are the most central Black Studies actors?
• Who are the professors most likely to be
  nominated by their peers in this survey?
• Many people mentioned once or twice but a few
  stood out.

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The Afrocentric center
Dr. Molefi Asante former chair of theTemple
Univeristy Black Studies program.
PhD in communications, prolific author, but most
importantly creator of the fields first PhD
program and inventor of Afro-centric theory.
Intellectual prominence corresponds with social
centrality.
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It doesnt stop there

• Other highly central scholars tend to be
  afro-centric.
• Example 3 in centrality is Maulana Karenga of
  CSU Northridge. Founder of the US organization
  and prominent Black Nationalist of the 1970s.

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What about Skip Gates?

• Some universities have tried to improve their
  Black Studies Programs by hiring highly visible
  mainstream scholars like Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
  So how central is he in the Black Studies network?

Only mentioned once by another scholar, who works
at a research university.
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Lets think about that

• The Survey picked up about 25 of the total
  population and participation was random.
• The founder of the afrocentric movement is on
  personal terms with probably 4-5 of the entire
  profession.

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Sources of the Network

• Weve gleaned some vital information about Black
  Studies professors and their connections. We
  learned some important things about the fields
  social structure.
• What factors might explain an individuals of
  ties within the profession? What about ratio of
  in ties to out ties?

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Hypothesis 1 Demography

• We expect some gender racial differences.
• We also expect time since PhD to have an effect
  people who have been in the field longer have had
  more chance to develop networks within the field.

25
Hypothesis 2 Disciplinary Training
Institutional Effect

• It might also be possible that disciplinary
  training might have an effect.
• Maybe specific disciplines encourage a more
  interdisciplinary orientation, leading to many
  more out ties.
• Public/private research/non-research effects.

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Hypothesis 3 Self-selection

• People who believe in a self-contained Black
  Studies field will be more likely to have ties
  inside the field.
• Call this the afro-centric effect.

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Data

• Dependent variable of ties within Black
  Studies proportion of all ties within Black
  Studies.
• Demography gender, race, year of Ph.D.
• Discipline Area of PhD
• Self selection measure of belief that Black
  Studies has its own ideas

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Summary of Poisson Models
Variable Ego Nbhd Ties in Ties out
Male Yes No Yes
Black No No No
PhD Year No Yes No
Social Sci. No No No
Public No No No
Research No Yes No
Afrocentric Yes - No Yes-
Methods No No No
Note Yes means significant effect. Poission
regression results. Alpha.05. Complete Data on
about 130 respondents.
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Summary of OLS Model
Variable Ratio of In/Total
Male No
Black No
PhD Year Yes
Social Sci. No
Public No
Research Yes
Afrocentric Yes
Methods No
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Summary

• Research question 1 Is Black Studies an
  interdiscipline?
• Yes when you measure networks, most ties are
  from Black Studies to non-black Studies.

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Summary

• Research Question 2 What factors explain Black
  Studies networks?
• Answer Gender plays a pretty big role. Recent
  PhDs have bigger inside networks. Same for
  profs at research schools.
• Afrocentric orientation correlates with smaller
  networks which have few outside ties.

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Future Research

• Do these results holds for other types of ties?
• Explore further the effect of Afrocentric
  ideology on fields social structure.
• Link network structure to observable behavior.