This paper by Nicholas C. Kawa, Jose´ A. Clavijo Michelangeli, Jessica L. Clark, Daniel Ginsberg, and
Christopher McCarty explores the inequality in present in the hiring practices in anthropology. The authors point to the irony that anthropologists, who themselves devote their research to uncovering the causes and existence of social inequality, also fall prey to systemic inequality. This not very surprising as historically, it is seen that being a critical judge of one’s own group is usually an uphill battle. The authors try to uncover the role of academic prestige for anthropology PhDs in finding a faculty position. The premise of the argument is that top 10 ranked institutions typically hire from other institutions of similar rank while further down the ranks, institutions are more likely to accept candidates from top ranked institutions. This leads to candidates from the top universities having a higher chance of employment solely on academic institution’s prestige versus personal career accomplishments. This systemic hierarchy is infamously dubbed “academic caste system” (Kawa, Ginsberg, Micheangeli, Clark 3). The authors use both statistical methods and social network analysis to show this disparity. Using information available on academic website about 1918 individuals who are tenured or on tenure track, the authors create a network graph. They primarily focus on the institution they gained the PhD and their current faculty placement. In addition, they note the GRE score and number of publications and citations. They suspect that gender and race would play a role but those are not included as it is not available on open source sites. Based on overdispersion seen in the data collected and observed, the distribution was categorized as a negative binomial random variable. The analysis was conducted using R packages such as caret, pscl, tidyverse, stats and car and the network graph was created using Gephi. Based on this analysis, the authors are able to show quantifiably and visually, that in fact a “about one in ten dyadic relationships are reciprocal within the network.” (Kawa et. al page 6) The results show that Chicago is the top university for placing anthropologist followed by Harvard, Michigan and Berkeley. The authors point out that the top 10 universities are typical elite, private universities with some well-known public universities.
Proposal
This study appealed to me using simple and effective research methods to make an important point about institutionalized inequality. I would like to research to what degree does academic institutional bias play a role in industry hiring practices. The data could be gathered in a similar manner using publicly posted information regarding where a person has graduated from and what is their first job out of college. To contain the scope of study, the study should be limited to a geographical region, universities’ around it and specific majors. For example, data from individuals working in tech companies in Bay area or Austin. The university prestige would use a similar line of thought with rankings and endowments but considering publications do not play a major role in industry reputation, determine what would be the equivalent. Using this, a network graph can be created to visualize what role does academic prestige play in hiring at highly sought after roles.
References
Kawa, Nicholas C., et al. “The Social Network of US Academic Anthropology and Its Inequalities.” American Anthropologist, vol. 121, no. 1, 2018, pp. 14–29., doi:10.1111/aman.13158.
This paper by Nicholas C. Kawa, Jose´ A. Clavijo Michelangeli, Jessica L. Clark, Daniel Ginsberg, and Christopher McCarty explores the inequality in present in the hiring practices in anthropology. The authors point to the irony that anthropologists, who themselves devote their research to uncovering the causes and existence of social inequality, also fall prey to systemic inequality. This not very surprising as historically, it is seen that being a critical judge of one’s own group is usually an uphill battle. The authors try to uncover the role of academic prestige for anthropology PhDs in finding a faculty position. The premise of the argument is that top 10 ranked institutions typically hire from other institutions of similar rank while further down the ranks, institutions are more likely to accept candidates from top ranked institutions. This leads to candidates from the top universities having a higher chance of employment solely on academic institution’s prestige versus personal career accomplishments. This systemic hierarchy is infamously dubbed “academic caste system” (Kawa, Ginsberg, Micheangeli, Clark 3). The authors use both statistical methods and social network analysis to show this disparity. Using information available on academic website about 1918 individuals who are tenured or on tenure track, the authors create a network graph. They primarily focus on the institution they gained the PhD and their current faculty placement. In addition, they note the GRE score and number of publications and citations. They suspect that gender and race would play a role but those are not included as it is not available on open source sites. Based on overdispersion seen in the data collected and observed, the distribution was categorized as a negative binomial random variable. The analysis was conducted using R packages such as caret, pscl, tidyverse, stats and car and the network graph was created using Gephi. Based on this analysis, the authors are able to show quantifiably and visually, that in fact a “about one in ten dyadic relationships are reciprocal within the network.” (Kawa et. al page 6) The results show that Chicago is the top university for placing anthropologist followed by Harvard, Michigan and Berkeley. The authors point out that the top 10 universities are typical elite, private universities with some well-known public universities.
Proposal
This study appealed to me using simple and effective research methods to make an important point about institutionalized inequality. I would like to research to what degree does academic institutional bias play a role in industry hiring practices. The data could be gathered in a similar manner using publicly posted information regarding where a person has graduated from and what is their first job out of college. To contain the scope of study, the study should be limited to a geographical region, universities’ around it and specific majors. For example, data from individuals working in tech companies in Bay area or Austin. The university prestige would use a similar line of thought with rankings and endowments but considering publications do not play a major role in industry reputation, determine what would be the equivalent. Using this, a network graph can be created to visualize what role does academic prestige play in hiring at highly sought after roles.
References
Kawa, Nicholas C., et al. “The Social Network of US Academic Anthropology and Its Inequalities.” American Anthropologist, vol. 121, no. 1, 2018, pp. 14–29., doi:10.1111/aman.13158.