Abstract
Background: The movement #BlackInTheIvory gave Black academics an opportunity to connect through a social media platform that allowed them to share common experiences in the pursuit of higher education. Through the analysis of Twitter posts, using the hashtag #BlackInTheIvory, this study investigates the main themes identified among Black scholars in academia and their shared experiences with teaching, mentoring, collegiality, identity, service, and racism.
Methods: Using the Twitter API, we isolated all publicly available tweets, which can include text, images, and links to websites, posted with the hashtag #BlackInTheIvory on the Twitter website (www.twitter.com) from the inception of the hashtag in June 2020 to the end of December 2020. In order to evaluate the tweets, we categorized the tweets inductively. Based on the content of the posts, we identified 6 themes: Teaching, Mentoring, Collegiality, Identity, Service, and Racism.
Results: Our search yielded a total of 12,538 original posts, that include tweets between inception in June 2020 to December 2020 from profiles that have been made public (excluding modified tweets and duplicate tweets). We selected and analyzed the top retweeted 2500 tweets, which is 20% (2500/12538) of the total number of downloaded tweets. The greatest percentage of posts were about Teaching (881; 35%), followed by Service (441; 18%) and Racism (414; 17%). The remaining tweets were categorized as Collegiality (388; 15%), Identity (210; 8%), and Mentoring (166; 7%) of the total number of tweets from June-December 2020.
Conclusion: The experiences, perspectives, and narrative among the Black diaspora within #blackintheivory are not uniform. The commonality exists within the structural systemic racism which impacts Black academics within the ivory tower. Racist students and over-taxed Black faculty serve as a key component to the unpleasant experience, as a result, rising black scholars are under mentored.
Methods: Using the Twitter API, we isolated all publicly available tweets, which can include text, images, and links to websites, posted with the hashtag #BlackInTheIvory on the Twitter website (www.twitter.com) from the inception of the hashtag in June 2020 to the end of December 2020. In order to evaluate the tweets, we categorized the tweets inductively. Based on the content of the posts, we identified 6 themes: Teaching, Mentoring, Collegiality, Identity, Service, and Racism.
Results: Our search yielded a total of 12,538 original posts, that include tweets between inception in June 2020 to December 2020 from profiles that have been made public (excluding modified tweets and duplicate tweets). We selected and analyzed the top retweeted 2500 tweets, which is 20% (2500/12538) of the total number of downloaded tweets. The greatest percentage of posts were about Teaching (881; 35%), followed by Service (441; 18%) and Racism (414; 17%). The remaining tweets were categorized as Collegiality (388; 15%), Identity (210; 8%), and Mentoring (166; 7%) of the total number of tweets from June-December 2020.
Conclusion: The experiences, perspectives, and narrative among the Black diaspora within #blackintheivory are not uniform. The commonality exists within the structural systemic racism which impacts Black academics within the ivory tower. Racist students and over-taxed Black faculty serve as a key component to the unpleasant experience, as a result, rising black scholars are under mentored.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 19 |
| State | Published - 18 Feb 2022 |
| Event | Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences Research Week 2022 : Poster Presentation - Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, United States Duration: 14 Feb 2022 → 18 Feb 2022 |
Conference
| Conference | Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences Research Week 2022 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Tulsa |
| Period | 14/02/22 → 18/02/22 |
Keywords
- #BlackInTheIvory
- BlackInTheIvory
- minority tax
- HBCU
- Rooney rule