U.S. tenure-track positions have steadily declined over the past 30 years and emphasis on research productivity has escalated. To achieve higher research and scholarship goals, the literature revealed that African American scholars have additional issues to overcome beyond the usual hurdles and challenges confronting other faculty. This study explored current research productivity by examining citation impact scores (h-indices) collected from Publish or Perish of African American scholars in top 25 ranked schools of social work cited in the 2012 U.S. News and World Report. The resultant sample consisted of N ¼ 14 scholars with h-index scores of 9 and higher. Results revealed nonsignificant statistical differences between specified subgroupings, and 80% of these scholars overexceeded their respective school mean h-index scores. Future research calls for a more comprehensive knowledge of faculty research and scholarship activities overall, including unique subgroups of Social Work scholars such as African Americans.
For decades, the incessantly tethered over-involvement of African American/Black (AA/BL) families with the U.S. Child Welfare System (CWS) has been uniquely troubling. Child welfare researchers have asserted “poverty” over “racism” as the root determinant of the historical disproportionate overrepresentation of AA/BL children in CWS. This commentary explores the extent this assertion holds once an apples-to-apples comparison of poor AA/BL and WH children in the CWS is examined. Using 2018 and 2019 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Systems (NCANDS) Child File data, rates of disproportionality and disparity for AA/BL and White (WH) children receiving public assistance (PA) (2018: N = 333,640; 2019: N = 321,273) were computed at two CW decision points [disposition of maltreatment investigation and subsequent services administered]. Among these poor children, AA/BL were found to be disproportionately overrepresented and WH children underrepresented compared to their proportion of the U.S. child population at each decision point. AA/BL children were also found to be three times more likely to have their maltreatment substantiated and subsequently be placed in foster care compared to their WH counterparts. The issues of racial disproportionality and disparities still exists when comparing poor AA/BL to poor WH children, which suggests “racism” is operational at decision points in the U.S. CWS and should not be minimized or omitted as a consequential determinant.
This study explored how African Americans are currently represented in social work journals, research, and schools. Method: Journal publication content and editorship, research methods and designs, and school mission statements and course titles were examined. Results: Only 14% of publications in the top 5 social work journals targeted African Americans as study subjects. The terms "African American" and "race" appeared in only 10% of mission statements of the top 50 ranked schools of social work and 20% of mission statements of the top 23 ranked historically African American colleges and university (HBCU) schools of social work and appeared in only six bachelor of social work and four master of social work course titles at HBCU social work schools. Only 2 of the top 16 U.S. social work journal editors were African American. Discussion: Across current social work venues, this study reveals that there has been minimal emphasis in research and pedagogy on race and African American-related matters.
While the literature revealed long-standing systemic and structural barriers to research productivity for African American scholars overall, these faculty somehow found ways to circumvent these challenges. Future research calls for a more comprehensive exploration into the character and impact of scholarship produced by African American faculty to further expand the knowledge base about elements of research cultures in social work.
This study explored the scholarship experiences of top-ranked African American faculty in schools of social work. Method: Qualitative interviews were conducted with N ¼ 10 top-ranked African American faculty identified as achieving considerable productivity and impact of scholarship. Findings: Four major themes were identified, each of which had 2-3 subcategories. These included (1) mentorship, (2) collaboration, (3) time, and (4) strategic planning. The data revealed that of these identified themes, mentorship was the most prominent, and collaboration, although important, was the least. Implications: The noted experiences and strategies highlighted in this study could be of great utility for those seeking to enhance their scholarly productivity and impact, particularly for (a) junior faculty, (b) African American faculty, and (c) doctoral student researchers and candidates.
This study assessed the research productivity of African American faculty in the top 25 ranked schools of social work cited in the 2012 U.S. News and World Report. Method: Four citation metrics (h-index, g-index, age-weighted citation rate, and per author age-weighted citation rate) were examined. Results: Scholar rankings per h-index changed when ranked by other metrics revealing more uniqueness beyond the impact of their scholarship. Discussion: While the h-index metric is a valuable measure of scholarly impact to assist tenure and promotion decisions, it should be considered with other metrics that reveal the overall character of individual scholarship. As the overall research culture of social work broadens, future research calls for an expanded knowledge based on measuring both impact and uniqueness of scholarship to assist faculty, especially minority scholars, in successfully negotiating and overcoming barriers and challenges.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.