Exploring Online Social Networks During the San Francisco Unified School Board Recall

• In Event: Social Network Tools for Twitter Analysis

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine elements of Twitter discourse, including keywords, influential actors, and patterns of interaction, surrounding the recall of three San Francisco Unified School District board members. Education politics in 2021were characterized by parental concern over extended school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic and perceptions that critical race theory was being taught in K-12 schools. That year, 96 school board recall elections took place, a threefold increase over the previous year (Ballotpedia, 2022). The San Francisco recall election took place on February 15, 2022. Three San Francisco Board of Education Commissioners (school board members) were recalled.

The San Francisco school board recall election provides a point of contrast with other recent school board recall attempts, such as the Loudoun County, Virginia recall attempt. As discussed by another paper in this proposed session, Twitter discourse surrounding that recall suggested that discussion of other topics, such as critical race theory and LGBTQ+ issues, rose and fell with the discourse surrounding the recall. This study applies the same methodology, but in a different political context, offering insight into the extent to which school board recall elections served as focusing events for a wide range of school-related policy discourse.

Perspective
This study is grounded in social network analysis (SNA), which has been described as a perspective in which human interactions and systems are best understood as a set of interactions and relations (Marin & Wellman, 2011).

Methods
This study applied SNA methods to Tweets, including the identification of nodes and edges, frequency of hashtags and keywords, and the development of sociograms. Additionally, ethnographic approaches to Twitter data were also used to explore the information contained within the Tweets (Stewart & Quan-Haase, 2017).
Data Sources
Data from this study consisted of the 46,845 Tweets posted between February 1, 2022 and February 28, 2022 that contained any of the keywords “San Francisco School Board Recall”, “SF School Board Recall”, “SF Recall”, and “SFUSD recall”. Using this set of Tweets, hashtags and users were identified, as well as nodes and edges within the social network.

Results
Figure 1 shows the frequency of Tweets using the provided keywords in February 2022 and shows that Tweets on this topic were clustered around election day. Figure 2 shows the lack of Tweets about other topical issues in education, such as critical race theory, school shootings, and LGBTQ+ policies. Rather, common hashtags occurring in this set of Tweets include #REDTSUNAMI, #StopAsianHate, and #Bitcoin. Figure 3 shows the growth of the social network over the month of the recall.

Scholarly Significance
Results from this study illustrate the extent to which online discourse before, during, and after political events may be shaped by local/national events, and how local political contexts may affect this relationship.

Authors

• Jessica Gottlieb, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author

• Nicole Jess, Michigan State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hasan Gokberk Bayhan, Michigan State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yi-Chih Chiang, Michigan State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shimeng Dai, Michigan State University
  Non-Presenting Author