Explanation of Methods: Yearbook Analysis
Schools did not have to collect information on the race or ethnicity of
students and teachers at schools until the late 1960’s, so we acquired
this data for our decade by using yearbook analysis. First, we went to
each of the high schools: Fairfax, Garfield, Jordan, Lynwood, Santa
Monica, and South Gate, and got yearbooks between 1953-1964. We
would sit down in pairs with one yearbook and analyze it, inferring the
ethnicity of each senior student and faculty member. The researcher
looking at the yearbook would go photo by photo and decide which
ethnic group the student or teacher appeared to belong to, making an
inference by their last name and appearance. The research partner
would keep a tally. We all used the same protocol so that we could all
record our data consistently and could easily compare them to
different schools. On the protocol we categorized the students into five
groups: White, African American, Latino, Asian, and other/unknown.
These categories use updated terms compared to the 1950 census; we
only included categories we thought we could place people into just by
looking at their photo and surname so there are fewer categories than
the 2000 census. Once we had all the numbers of the 16 yearbooks
from 6 schools, we decided to convert to percentages. Percentages
allows us to compare schools even if they are of different sizes;
making bar graphs helps us visualize ethnic breakdowns between
different years in the same school and between different schools.
The only problem that we encountered was the fact that our methods
were not totally accurate. The pictures were in black and white, which
made it harder to tell their skin complexion. For example, there were a
few people that looked almost white but had a traditionally black last
name, so we would discuss these difficult cases with our partners and
vote on a category for the person. Even though there were some
controversy, the majority of them were easy to group.
After looking at the senior class and the faculty, we also looked at
sports teams and other extracurricular activities to assess the group’s
diversity. We decided to do this because most of our interviewees said
that sports were the uniting factor between races. Also, some said that
if the school was predominantly white you could find the few minority
students in the athletics department and extracurricular activities.
We also attempted to estimate the dropout rate in a school by
counting the number of sophomores in one class and comparing it to
the number of seniors in the same class three years later. However,
because Los Angeles was growing at such a fast rate during our
decade the senior class was always considerably bigger than the
sophomore class. Therefore, we could not estimate the number of
students who had dropped out. In future research, it might be more
effective to do a name-to-name analysis, following specific
sophomores through their high school careers and seeing how many
graduate and how many disappear because they move away or drop
out.
Our yearbook method was chosen mostly because the census data
from our decade did not entail information on ethnicity in schools.
Being able to do the yearbook analysis gave us the opportunity to
compare and contrast the data on the communities around the
schools. We were able to see that if the communities were
predominantly Hispanic or African American the closest school would
probably be a minority school. Our yearbook analysis contrasts with
traditional research because we not only looked at the student body
but we saw what they were doing. For example, we tried to see who
was in what sport, activity and so on. Critical Public History relates
closely to the differences between the traditional research and our
own. Critical Public History is when you take the information attained
by the different kinds of research and analyze it. You take the
information you have and ask why is this like it is and what made it
that way. After you have asked the questions and gotten the answers
you were looking for you can give your opinion on it. I think that
Critical Public History is 1/3 research and 2/3 opinion.
Yearbooks as Artifacts
The quality of the yearbooks at each school didn’t vary much. The
yearbooks were all hard-back with beautiful, creative designs on the
cover and sturdy, glossy pages, except the yearbook for Jordan High
School which had thinner, yellowed pages. The Jordan yearbook fit
many more students on each page, requiring smaller pictures,
probably because yearbooks with fewer pages cost less to produce
than yearbooks with more pages. The Jordan yearbook also consisted
only of student portraits followed by copies of the entire year’s school
newspaper. There didn’t seem to be a separate group or class to
publish articles just for the yearbook like other schools had – so they
just dropped the newspaper in, which did make for an interesting
overview of the school year’s events, sports, etc. The quality of the
yearbooks says something about the school because it says if they
actually knew how to create yearbooks or if they had the equipment to
make them. Also, the yearbooks show what the school looked like
showing the facilities, the students, and the activities they were
involved in.