How Much Can a School Website Tell You About the School Itself?
This is a question I have been asking myself as I have been exploring the website of the school I am researching this semester, Sankofa International College (a pseudonym). Over the past few weeks, I have been working on getting a bigger picture of the school’s mission, the extracurriculars, the campus, and the students that attend through looking at the website and listening to student and alumni interviews. Because I have never visited the school itself, a lot of the information I am gathering about the school is merely based on images and text from the website, showing how they are marketing themselves. I feel it is important to ask myself how accurate this portrayal is of the school in reality. Having never gone to this school in person presents its own set of challenges that I want to be aware of as I analyze student experiences in my research project.
The website is pleasing to look at with blue and white color scheme and a school crest beside the large written name of the school. It shows the continent of Africa accompanied by a stack of books on one side and doors that are opened on the other side. On the upper part of the continent there are two black stick figures running towards a flower and the words “Knowledge in the Service of Africa” are written below. Something I noticed immediately on this school website was the consistent message of a focus on Pan-Africanism on their school crest as well as the alternating images on the website reflect this.
When a website visitor clicks on the tab “Mission and Philosophy”, a large image appears of four women standing in a grass field, one holding a pick ax, in traditional clothing with very serious faces looking straight into the camera. On top of the image brightly colored text reads “Service: DNA of the school.” This image and text emphasize the school’s mission of uplifting African culture through serving women like these in the picture who are African farmers. Also, in order to get a sense of the school culture, I looked closely at the section on the homepage titled “College Moments.” These images show students participating in robotics, playing basketball, playing the violin, smiling with young African kids, and acting in plays. This shows an emphasis on portraying the school as a place with lots of extracurricular opportunities and community involvement.
After viewing these messages from the website, it was interesting to listen to the student interviews which gave me a chance to see if what the students were saying aligned with the official message of the school. One of the students discussed his experience at school saying that he takes seven very intensive courses at a time, making it difficult to fit in other things besides work and how overwhelming this is for him
When asked what colleges he plans on applying to he listed all schools on the East Coast of the United States showing how he plans to leave Africa after he graduates. Another important aspect not visible from the website that I learned from listening to student interviews is the distinction between disadvantaged students and wealthier students that is very present for students and not present on the website.
One student discussed how because the wealthier students are upper class, they stay in separate social groups than the disadvantaged students. In the pictures of the smiling students all hanging out together on the website, you do not see the divide between social class groups which is a big part of the student experience. You also do not see the intensive work of taking seven courses at a time and barely having time to participate in other activities. Lastly, you do not see the pattern of students graduating and moving to the United States because the school emphasizes on the website the mission of focusing on African culture and service to Africa when in reality so many of their students are leaving Africa immediately after graduation
A website can only tell you so much about the school itself. What they put on the website is how they want to be seen by the community and by students and parents considering the school. But what are they not including on their website? Without listening to the student interviews about Sankofa International College, I would be missing a lot of information about how this elite school actually functions. Advertisements and promotional content about elite schools show a very limited perspective of what that school may actually be like, and this is important to realize in these research projects where we cannot actually go visit the school in person. A question I believe everyone should ask themselves when looking through information on these schools is, what are these websites not showing about the school?