Information Science

Fundamentismus (“Foundationism”) und Skeptizismus-Anarchismus sind zwei entgegengesetzte Positionen in der traditionellen Erkenntnistheorie und in der modernen Wissenschaftstheorie. Zwischen ihnen gibt es einen dritten Standpunkt, den Evolutionismus. Beispiele sind zwei neuere Arbeiten von Putnam (1978) und Stegmüller (1979). Im Gegensatz zum logisch-statischen Fundamentismus berücksichtigt der Evolutionismus auch dynamische und naturalistische Ansätze. Stegmüller folgend entlehnen wir in der vorliegenden Untersuchung aus der Sprachphilosophie pragmatische Gesichtspunkte, um die logische Syntax und Semantik, die Werkzeuge des Fundamentismus, zu ersetzen. Wir zeigen die Kraft der Pragmatik bei der Behandlung von Problemen wie Erkenntniswachstum, Begriffswechsel, Theorien- und Bedeutungsdynamik, wissenschaftliche Entdeckung und besonders beim Problem der Inkommensurabilität. Unser nicht-fundamentistischer Vorschlag ist ein heuristisches Modell, das auf der modernen genetischen Theorie basiert.

Although between one-third to one-half of world social sciences research literature is published in languages other than English, studies show very scant use of it by American and English scholars. Almost all studies, however, were conducted from the Anglo-Saxon perspective, limiting the scope of the study to English-published sources or English-speaking scientists and research workers. The present study aimed at assessing the scope of the language preference in a social sciences field, not only among American and British scholars, but among German and French ones as well, using the technique of citation analysis. Samples including mostly 50-60 original research articles were drawn from the 1985-1994 volumes of nine leading sociology journals published in the US, UK, Germany and France and the references appended to each were scrutinized in order to determine the frequency distribution of the languages cited in each periodical. Findings clearly showed a strong preference of writers to cite material in their own language. However, the extent of this bias differed from journal to journal. The American and British writers rank first, with close to 99% of their references being in English. German scholars rank next, preferring German sources in 75% of the cases, and French scholars quote French sources in only 66% of their references. In order to calculate the new refined measure of 'relative own-language preference' (ROLP) indicator, the proportions of 'language self-citation' were related to the estimated proportions of these languages in the existing body of sociology research. This measure reveals that German sociologists have the strongest bias towards their mother-tongue, their ratio of references in German exceeding almost 12 to 28 times the expected figure according to the German language share in sociology research. Next come French sociologists (8 to 14 times) while American and British ones display the lowest own-language bias, only slightly higher than expected. Further analysis of the foreign languages preference of each group, according to a 'mutual-use' matrix, shows a relative low use of German and French sources by British-American sociologists.

The free flow of unfiltered information, as facilitated by current IT, poses great challenges for a conservative community that strives to retain its members, and especially its youngsters, within a traditional lifestyle. The study explores the ways by which the Israeli ultra-orthodox community, a conservative minority one, upholding a unique subculture, copes with the challenges of unrestricted information flow in a developed country like Israel, which largely embraces the latest IT innovations.

Research evaluating models of scientific productivity require coherent metrics that quantify various key relations among papers as revealed by patterns of citation. This paper focuses on the various conceptual problems inherent in measuring the degree to which papers tend to cite other papers written by authors of the same nationality. We suggest that measures can be given a degree of

Although between one-third to one-half of world social sciences research literature is published in languages other than English, studies show very scant use of it by American and English scholars. Almost all studies, however, were conducted from the Anglo-Saxon perspective, limiting the scope of the study to English-published sources or English-speaking scientists and research workers. The present study aimed at assessing the scope of the language preference in a social sciences field, not only among American and British scholars, but among German and French ones as well, using the technique of citation analysis. Samples including mostly 50–60 original research articles were drawn from the 1985–1994 volumes of nine leading sociology journals published in the US, UK, Germany and France and the references appended to each were scrutinized in order to determine the frequency distribution of the languages cited in each periodical. Findings clearly showed a strong preference of writers ...

Millions of people have immigrated to Israel throughout the 1900s and before. Immigration waves are considered the most important social, political, and economical turning points in the history of Israel. This study analyzes the content of Israeli children's books dealing with immigrants and immigration to determine the image of immigrants and immigration, the realism of the image, and the attitudes of children's book authors toward this subject. More than 30 Hebrew children's books with immigrant problems as the central theme were analyzed. Approximately one-half the books were published during the 1980s, more than one-third (n=11) in the 1990s and 16% (n=5) in the 1970s. Three books described purely positive, idealistic attitudes on the part of the settled population. The study concluded that: (1) the children described in the books immigrated to Israel from different countries around the world; (2) the negative attitude toward immigrants characterized almost all periods of immigration to Israel; (3) ambivalent feelings toward immigrants; (4) all books included the message that negative attitudes toward immigrants stem from biases and prejudice, and are wrong; and (5) immigrants who remained steadfast and struggled against the environment and conditions finally overcame the obstacles and were successfully absorbed into the new country. (Contains 21 references.) (Author/SWC)

Images of elderly people were checked in dozens of children’s books published in Israel in Hebrew, designed usually for the consumption of the general, not orthodox, public. Generally speaking, images were positive, depicting the elderly people in various life circumstances.