Context: Why Learn Data Visualization from Du Bois?

Overview

Questions

• How can data visualization and creativity help answer important scientific questions?
• Why did data visualization become predominant in the social sciences earlier than for physical and natural sciences?
• How did Du Bubois use data visualization to challenge false biological theories of racial inequality?
• How did team science help Du Bois’ team to create impactful visualizations for the 1900 Paris exposition?

Objectives

• Explain why data visualization and creativity are vital tools in scientific research.
• Comprehend why data visualization historically originated in the social sciences, including Du Bois’ analyses that challenged false biological theories of racial inequality.
• Understand how Du Bois used visualizations to accessibly communicate findings to a broad audience.
• Undrstand the benefits of a “team science” approach similar to that used by Du Bois. (too much)

Now let’s begin with the context. The Context section provides background on the conception, motivation, and messaging of the data visuals.

This slide has two images; the 1st image is of WEB Du Bois and the second is of his Paris exhibit. Du Bois was trained at Fisk University, a HBCU in Nashville, TN. He was first Black American to earn a PhD from Harvard University, and studied internationally as well. As we will demonstrate, Du Bois was a canonical US social scientist who notably used innovative data visualizations to tell theoretically astute data stories about Black Americans and Black empowerment for broad audiences, we believe setting the foundation for what is now recognized as visualization and storytelling in STEM and other disciplines. Du Bois was also among the first professors in the nation to train students in sociological theory and empirical methodologies, including large scale quantitative surveys wherein they collected, analyzed, and visualized data.
Also discussed is the venue where the visuals were first shown, the Exhibition of the American Negro, within the 1900 Paris Exposition. The Paris Exposition was a world fair that was supposed to showcase achievements of the last century and move into developments for the next century” To better understand the times when the visuals were created, influential events leading to the Exposition are discussed.

Discussion

Exercise 1

Why do you think Du Bois created a series of graphs and data visualizations of Black life for the exposition?

Give me a hint

Why visualizations instead of a written report?

Solution 1

Du Bois used rigorous yet accessible methods to challenge subsequently discredited claims associated with scientific racism that devalued and assumed Black communities as inferior. The visualizations helped show some of the systemic barriers impeding the progress for black Americans as compared to a deficit approach that would suggest black people were somehow innately less capable. This is a paradigm shift in showing how social science can work together with other STEM fields to produce the most accurate science and impressive visualizations.

Discussion

Disucssion

What effect did the venue have on the design of the visuals?

Key Points

• This is a place for writing key points that students have learned in this episode.