The Character of Published Scholarship By Top Ranked African American Faculty in Schools of Social Work

Background and Purpose: In an earlier study, two years prior, we published the first study of the top ranked African American scholars in the top 25-ranked schools of social work in the U.S. using the h-index from Publish or Perish website <http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm> which publishes 18 other metrics along with the well-known h-index. In this study we were concerned with assessing the content of the lifetime impact of these top ranked N=14 African American scholars.  We were particularly concerned with examining the extent and nature of their scholarship impact as it related to African Americans.  The main research question was: To what extent do the top ranked African American scholars conduct research on African Americans?  This study is the fifth in succession in our knowledge-building journey related to African American scholarship in the U.S., as there are no other empirical studies written about this subject matter. 

Method: Independently, two PhD students re-visited the PoP site and ran word searches on: ‘Black,’ ‘African American,’ ‘minority,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘culture,’ and ‘minority research subjects’, only on their top 5 ranked h-index impact publications and cross referenced them. Inter-rater reliability was 98.7% and where there were differences, they were resolved by a team discussion.

Major Findings:   The N₂=70 articles content analyzed revealed some interesting findings.  These were: a) 19% were single authored publications implying a strong collaborative orientation to their work, b) 51.4% had African American content reflected in their titles, and c) 39% were published in high impact citation journals [h >0.33] in both the U.S. and U.K.

Implications:  These were the top N=14 African American scholars in the U.S. They were all full professors, many of them named chairs in their schools of social work, and all of them worked in predominantly white institutions [our top 25 ranked social work schools]. The literature indicated that historically systemic and structural barriers exist for the less than 6 % of African American scholars in universities in America. Despite such barriers, these scholars not only overcame them, but leapt over them, in terms of their citation impact.  It appears from these findings that the longstanding tradition of collaborative scholarship continues in social work. Second, we were encouraged by the fact that over 50 % of their top 5-impact citation articles related to African American in their titles. This may have been higher, if we conducted a content analysis also of the abstracts of these journals.  It would also appear that these authors understood the importance of publishing in high impact journals which seems timely as universities become more corporatized and outcome driven worldwide. Study implications are important for students, junior faculty, and minority faculty. They are also important for promotion and tenure, and the significance of building research cultures more meaningfully in schools of social work.