Elitism in mathematics and inequality

This paper investigates elitism in mathematics, focusing on the Fields Medal and its impact on under-represented mathematicians. Using network analysis and natural language processing on a dataset of 240,000 mathematicians, the study examines the flow of elite mathematicians between countries and lingo-ethnic identities. The authors find evidence of the Fields Medal's role in integrating Japan after WWII but also persistent underrepresentation of Arabic, African, and East Asian identities at the elite level. The methodology, academic genealogical analysis, is proposed as a tool for diagnosing equity and bias in academic fields.

Ho-Chun Herbert Chang, Feng Fu