Social Science Research Institute Research Articles

Hagnýting menntunar meðal háskólamenntaðs starfsfólks einkarekinna fyrirtækja og opinberra stofnana

Markmið greinarinnar er að kanna hvort munur sé á hagnýtingu þekkingar meðal háskólamenntaðs fólks sem vinnur annars vegar í einkareknum fyrirtækjum og í opinberum stofnunum hins vegar. Úrtak rannsóknarinnar byggðist á tilviljunarúrtaki úr þjóðskrá sem Þjóðmálakönnun Félagsvísindastofnunar Háskóla Íslands framkvæmdi 9. mars til 9. apríl 2016. Könnunin náði til 2.001 einstaklings á aldrinum 18 ára og eldri á landinu öllu og svöruðu 1.210 þeirra könnuninni. Í þessari rannsókn var aðeins litið til þeirra þátttakenda í úrtakinu sem höfðu lokið háskólanámi og voru í launaðri vinnu á Íslandi hjá hinu opinbera eða í einkafyrirtæki. Eftir hreinsun gagna voru þátttakendur 374, þar af voru 178 karlar og 196 konur. Niðurstöður rannsóknar sýndu að 20,3% þátttakenda voru ofmenntuð. Meirihluti kvenna vinnur hjá hinu opinbera en meirihluti karla hjá einkafyrirtækjum. Vanmenntaðir starfsmenn eru líklegri til að starfa hjá hinu opinbera á meðan ofmenntaðir eru líklegri til að starfa hjá einkafyrirtækjum (sá munur skýrist af van- eða ofmenntun kvenna). Hjá opinberum fyrirtækjum starfa frekar þeir sem lokið hafa námi á sviði mennta- og heilbrigðisvísinda meðan starfsfólk af verk- og náttúruvísindasviði er helst hjá einkafyrirtækjum. Laun eru hærri hjá einkafyrirtækjum.

Prevalence, severity and distribution of depression and anxiety symptoms using observational data collected before and nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by substantial increases in adverse mental health, particularly among the young. However, it remains unclear to what extent increases in population scores on mental health assessments are due to changes in prevalence, rather than severity of symptoms. Further, it is not obvious that widely used assessments of aggregate symptoms retain their typical interpretation during an event that directly disrupts behavior. MethodsPre-pandemic data on workers age 18-69y in the 2019 National Health Interview Survey are reweighted to match distributions of demographic characteristics of Duke University employees surveyed nine months into the pandemic. The latter population was at low risk of infection or economic insecurity. Prevalence, severity, and scores for each of nine symptoms are compared overall and by age group. OutcomesElevated psychological distress is primarily driven by increases in prevalence of particular symptoms. Prevalence of trouble concentrating increased six-fold from 9.6% to 72.5%. Other symptoms increased by over one-third; feeling anxious, having little interest, feeling depressed, sleep problems and being irritable, while some symptoms rose only 10% or less. Severity also increased but magnitudes are small relative to prevalence changes. Escalation in prevalence and severity are greatest for the youngest. InterpretationSome of the least prevalent symptoms pre-pandemic became the most prevalent during the pandemic, affecting interpretation of indices validated pre-pandemic. Clinical and policy interventions should focus on specific symptoms that increased including trouble concentrating and anxiety. FundingTrinity College of Arts & Sciences and Social Science Research Institute at Duke University.

Leadership Legitimacy

Leadership Legitimacy

Uncertain Future

Uncertain Future

Áhrif mismunandi hugtakanotkunar á viðhorf almennings

Pólitískri orðræðu er stýrt með notkun tungumálsins. Stjórnmálamenn miðla skilaboðum, beint og óbeint, í gegnum tungumálið í þeim tilgangi að auka stuðning og skapa sátt við pólitískar hugmyndir og aðgerðir. Með þessum hætti beita stjórnmálamenn ákveðnum skilgreiningum og hugtökum frekar en öðrum til að lýsa og „merkja“ fyrirbæri í orðræðunni. Þau hugtök sem stjórnmálamenn halda uppi í almennri umræðu þarf því að greina í félagslegu og pólitísku ljósi. Þessi grein byggir á orðræðugreiningu á hugtakanotkun stjórnmálamanna sem unnin var úr spurningalistakönnun Félagsvísindastofnunar Háskóla Íslands. Þar var skoðaður munur á viðhorfum almennings til þriggja (mis)mikilvægra málefna í íslenskum samtíma, þar sem einn hópur fékk spurningu um málefni með „hlutlausu“ hugtaki en annar hópur fékk spurningu um sama málefni með „gildishlöðnu“ hugtaki. Tilgáturnar gerðu ráð fyrir að hlutlausari hugtök hlytu meiri stuðning heldur en gildishlaðnari hugtök. Nánar tiltekið var spurt um viðhorf til: a) lögleiðingar spilahalla eða spilavíta hér á landi; b) setningu veggjalda eða vegtolla á þjóðvegum landsins; og c) nýrra laga um þungunarrof eða fóstureyðingar. Niðurstöðurnar sýndu að viðhorf til málefnanna þriggja voru mismunandi en bentu jafnframt til þess að hugtakanotkun skipti ekki miklu máli í þessu samhengi. Lítill og ómarktækur munur var á viðhorfum svarenda til lögleiðingar spilahalla eða spilavíta, sem og til laga um þungunarrof eða fóstureyðingar (tengslin voru frekar í öfuga átt við það sem spáð var), en marktækur munur kom fram á viðhorfum svarenda sem studdu frekar setningu veggjalda en vegtolla. Niðurstöðurnar benda til þess að útbreiðsla hugtaka og hugtakalæsi almennings skipti máli í þessu samhengi.

Public Opinion in Iceland on Aid During the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa

Public support in high-income countries for development cooperation and humanitarian assistance influences the provision of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fight global poverty and improve conditions in low-income countries. This research examined public attitudes in Iceland toward ODA, with the aid provided by the Icelandic government in September 2014 to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as a case in point. Specifically, it examines which characteristics relate to having negative attitudes towards the assistance, and what reasons the public believe influenced the decision to provide aid. A questionnaire about attitudes towards the Ebola epidemic was administered to a random sample of 1.500 adults from an internet panel established by the Social Science Research Institute of the University of Iceland, and 920 people answered (61 per cent response rate). A quarter of the respondents expressed negative attitudes towards the humanitarian assistance provided in response to the Ebola epidemic, and development cooperation in general. Those who held negative attitudes were more likely to lean to the right in political orientation and be less educated. The majority of the public believed ethical reasons influenced the decision to provide humanitarian assistance. Respondents with negative attitudes towards the aid were more likely to believe that self-interest influenced the decision to provide aid; yet, a survey with an experimental design is needed to elucidate this issue further. Governments should ensure that development cooperation and humanitarian assistance are based on ethical considerations, in addition to educating the public about development processes, to increase positive attitudes towards foreign aid.

The Unique Challenges Facing Rural Providers in the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The Unique Challenges Facing Rural Providers in the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Museum Priorities

This editorial is being written as the first terrorizing wave of a global pandemic, known as COVID-19, is washing across the world. Government agencies are struggling to stay ahead of the infection rate and asking citizens around the world to withdraw from civic gatherings, to stay at home, and to limit our social contact. The museum community is matching this call to action, canceling events and closing their doors, sending most staff home and maintaining themselves with skeleton maintenance and security services. A few innovators are using this opportunity to provide access to virtual tours, lectures, and activities as ways to help people sheltering in place with respite from the daily deluge of data. We are still early in the pandemic but the devastation this virus will cause to our spirits and the economy will echo for years to come. When we first assembled this issue, the museum sector was healthy, debating large budget museums and how the non-profit sector operates in a robust global economy. But today we face a completely changed future. It seems that this crisis has surfaced some critical issues that can be the foundation for scholarly study, and just possibly some time to think about how a new vision for the museum sector might emerge as our communities make the slow return to civic engagement and public life. In this issue, and prior to the pandemic, Associate Editor, Vince Dziekan curated a series of reflections on the tension between art and archives. The first of two sets of papers that organized around the idea that museum experience is motivated by a continuum thinking approach that accepts intersectional narratives. That is, that the archive will soon cease to be a a static catalogue, replaced by a relational dataset that can be rewritten. What was once difficult for archivists to develop in past eras is now a common affordance of digital tagging and representation. As we reviewed these papers on this emerging trend in knowledge (re)construction, I believe the concept is particularly useful for rethinking our natural history assets, city museums, the role museums of conscience play in shifting social perspectives, and how science finds representation in museum contexts. Indeed, the opportunity to explore new relationships in the record of material culture and natural history assets might help us recraft our relationships with the world around us. We welcome manuscripts that focus on how our community is coming to terms with past oppressions and exclusions. In Volume 63 issue 1, we introduced our first Curator: The Museum Journal/Knology Writing Scholars Workshop for emerging or mid-career museum professionals in the USA. Participation in this workshop made possible through a 50% matching grant funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (award #MG-50-18-0044-18). Since they joined us in December 2019, the scholars have been hard at work exploring our archives to develop virtual issues that explore emergent questions facing the museum sector. With the global pandemic leaving many museum workers in their homes, we’ve now partnered with Wiley to release seven of virtual issues and the framing papers developed by our scholars as open access for the next six months. A new virtual issue will be released every two weeks between April 8th, 2020 and the middle of June. All of these issues and the introductory essay will be released as open access on both CuratorJournal.org, our social media site, and on Wiley’s Curator: The Museum Journal’s web page: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/21516952 We invite museum scholars around the world to share these resources widely, and to take this time to reflect on where we can go as the world moves in to a post-pandemic recovery period. We may be facing radical economic stresses as we move into the recovery cycle. We hope that our resources offer some support for the new museum sector that is bound to emerge from this challenge the coming decades. John Fraser (johnf@knology.org), Editor. John Fraser is President & CEO of Knology Ltd., a social science research institute based in the USA, and the 2019–2020 Past President of the Society for Environmental, Population, & Conservation Psychology, Division 34 of the American Psychological Association.

The Institutional Context of ‘Linguistic Injustice’: Norwegian Social Scientists and Situated Multilingualism

The debate about ‘linguistic injustice’ centers on whether or not English as an additional language (EAL) writers face challenges in writing academically that are qualitatively different from those of novice academic writers irrespective of language background. This study aims to add nuance to this debate by looking at range of writers (from novice to expert) within an interdisciplinary social science research institute in Norway in order to investigate the mediating role of the institutional context. Using an ethnographic approach with an academic literacies perspective, it examines the challenges these writers face and discusses them in light of tensions between identity and institutional environment. It argues that the high degree of immersion in English causes ‘situated multilingualism’, where their ability to write about their topic in English surpasses their ability to write about it in Norwegian. Nonetheless, even the expert writers, particularly those in disciplines that value a unique authorial voice, demonstrated insecurity and lack of ownership to their writing in English. Moreover, the pressure to also sometimes write in Norwegian represented an additional site of negotiation not faced by their non-Norwegian counterparts. This suggests that the challenges EAL writers face are not determined by their language background alone, but also by their institutional environment—including the pressure to publish ‘internationally’, the amount of writing expected, and their immersion in English.

Viðhorf háskólastúdenta til tungumálakunnáttu

Students at the University of Iceland report that the study of languages brings professional benefit. Many of them would like to increase their foreign language skills if that could be better built into their programs This is the result of a survey made by the Social Science Research Institute for the Faculty of Languages and Cultures. This paper points out that most faculties at the University of Iceland make it difficult or impossible to study a foreign language as a part of a degree program, even when the students are interested in such a combination and the benefit can easily be shown. The authors of this paper show that the funding structure of the University of Iceland directly prevents students from increasing and deepening their knowledge of regions, cultures and languages. The authors conclude that these limitations reduce the quality of the study programs at the University and that system change is necessary to enable students to build language skills into their professional training and academic study.

The contingent valuation study of the wind farm Búrfellslundur - Willingness to pay for preservation

Following the success of two trial wind turbines, the national power company of Iceland, Landsvirkjun, proposed a wind farm at Búrfellslundur on the edge of the Icelandic highlands. The farm would comprise of 67 turbines with combined production capacity of 200 MW. The Environmental Impact Assessment for the development raised concerns about the visual impacts of the proposals on the surrounding countryside. In this study, the contingent valuation method was applied to evaluate preferences and estimate willingness to pay to preserve Búrfellslundur. This study represents only the third contribution in the international academic literature concerning the economic value of the environmental costs of developing wind farms, and the first focused on onshore resources. In addition, this paper fulfills a call by the OECD, who have requested that Iceland commence economic valuation of the environmental impacts of energy projects. A web-based contingent valuation survey was developed and issued by the University of Iceland's Social Science Research Institute, receiving 690 respondents. Of these, 28% were willing to pay for preservation. Interval regression using log-transformation was applied to estimate mean willingness-to-pay, which was 12,549 ISK (approximately US $128). When scaled up to the Icelandic population of taxpayers, the economic value of preserving Búrfellslundur was estimated to be 3.17 billion ISK (approximately US $32.3 million). These results are of a scale that could have a significant impact on the social welfare gains or losses associated with Búrfellslundur, and inform the international land-use management debate concerning the trade-offs of developing wind farms.

Sýn Íslendinga á utanríkis- og öryggismál

Afstaða Íslendinga til öryggismála hefur lítið verið rannsökuð frá því í lok kalda stríðsins. Í þessari grein eru kynntar niðurstöður könnunar um afstöðu til og hugmyndir um utanríkis- og öryggismál, en Félagsvísindastofnun HÍ vann könnunina í nóvember og desember 2016. Niðurstöður könnunarinnar eru settar í samhengi við þróun í öryggisfræðum, þá sérstaklega öryggisgeira (e. security sectors) verufræðilegt öryggi (e. ontological security) og öryggisvæðingu (e. securitization). Helstu niðurstöður eru að almenningur á Íslandi telur öryggi sínu helst stafa ógn af efnahagslegum og fjárhagslegum óstöðugleika og náttúruhamförum, en telur litlar líkur á því að hernaðarátök eða hryðjuverkaárásir snerti landið beint. Þessar niðurstöður eru í takmörkuðu samræmi við helstu áherslur stjórnvalda í öryggismálum og því mikilvægt að stjórnvöld átti sig á því hvernig hægt er að tryggja það að almenningur sé meðvitaður um þær forsendur sem áhættumat og öryggisstefna grundvallast á.

What's in a number? How (and why) measuring research productivity in different ways changes the gender gap

A persistent finding in studies of research productivity is the 'gender gap', where men seem to publish more academic research than women. However, this gap varies widely from study to study, and little has been done to explore how these claims might be sensitive to what is being measured and how. Using a dataset of publications statistics spanning five years for a Norwegian social science research institute, this paper looks at how (and why) measuring productivity in different ways provides different pictures of the gender gap. Based on the situated context of the institute, we also disaggregate the data by staff category, methodological orientation, and language background, and consider the impact of leaves of absence. We find widely varying measures of the gender gap depending on how we measure and disaggregate, and argue that different bibliometric indicators capture different aspects of research performance, including diversity of output and collaboration, which reflect different publication practices that are both gendered and situated. We suggest that looking at academic writing as a situated - and gendered - social practice offers a potential for deriving more theoretically consistent explanations for both the seeming persistence of the gender gap and the wide contextual variations.

Managing the Preservation of Records for Digital Primary Data: A Case of Malaysia Institution

Concerns raised about the lack of preservation initiatives and poor access to global scientific knowledge in the form of primary research data and records for research in the turn of the 20th century resulted in the development of a variety of ways to remedy the inadequacies associated with scholarly research data/products and dissemination of knowledge pertaining to research activities. The aim of the paper is to examine the needs for the surveyed social science research institutions in Malaysian government for the preservation of their digital primary research data. This paper presents the findings of the survey questionnaires of the existing practices on the preservation of primary research data in the selected Malaysian research institutions and related organizations. The questions asked in the survey were based on the elements of the generic preservation framework.

Hagnýting menntunar meðal háskólamenntaðs starfsfólks einkarekinna fyrirtækja og opinberra stofnana

The aim of the article is to examine whether there is a difference in the utilization of education among university educated employees in private companies on the one hand and public institutions on the other. The target population of the research was based on a random sample drawn from the National Population Register by the National Survey of the Social Science Research Institute of the University of Iceland from 9 March to 9 April 2016. The survey included 2,001 individuals, aged 18 or above, from all over the country. A total of 1,210 persons responded to the survey. This research only involved those participants in the sample who had completed a university education and were salaried employees in Iceland. After data cleansing, 374 participants remained, 178 males and 196 females. The initial results of the research indicated that 20.3% of participants were over-educated for their jobs. The majority of females work in public companies, while the majority of males work in private companies. Individuals with under-education are most likely to be found within public companies, at the same time as over-educated individuals are most likely to be found in private companies (the difference lies in the under- and over-education of females). Those working in public companies come primarily from educational and health sicences, while engineers and natural sicentists work primarily at private companies. Incomes are higher in private companies.

Awareness and use of Open Access Resources among the Social Scientists: A Study of ICSSR Institutes in India

Social science research institutions play a vital role in society by way of creating, formulating public policies. This study focuses on social scientists’ approach to open access initiatives in India. A structured questionnaire was distributed among 288 faculty members of ICSSR institutes located all over India; 166 (58%) responses were received. The study findings show that, 67% of the respondents are aware of open access resources available in social science research arena, but are not very keen on publishing their research work in open access journals. Over 55% of the respondents have responded positively to citation of open access resources in their research publications. Visibility and free access are found to be the major advantages associated with open access journals, while expensive author publishing charge is the foremost hurdle to publishing articles in open access journals. Finally, the study concludes with the suggestion that OA publishers need to be more vibrant about maintaining the quality of research articles in addition to enlightening on the role of librarians in promoting the use of open access resources.

Impact of information technology on reading habits of social scientists: A case study

The paper examines the Reading Habits of Social Scientists at a leading social science research institute and Panjab University . The introduction of new technology, especially computer and the Internet have posed a threat to reading habits. Information Technology becomes the Time Eating Machines especially social media and mass media. Reading helps in all-round development of a person from his birth to death. It adds new sight to eyes and new wisdom to mind. The reading habit is an essential and important aspect for creating the literate society in this world. Children, youth and adults alike are more inclined towards new technology for information, entertainment and pleasure. Now to keep balance in the use of old and new technology, the librarians have to attract new generation towards reading.

Role of Libraries in Research Productivity of Social Science Research Institutions: A Case Study

In India, research in Social Science dates back to the establishment of Universities across the country but the pace of research actually accelerated with the establishment of Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) in 1969. At present, research in Social Science is carried out in different categories of organizations such as specialized research institutions, Universities, Deemed to be Universities, Social Science departments in Institutes of National Importance such as IITs, IIMs etc. With a backdrop argument that libraries play a vital role in research output of social science research institutions, this paper tried to find out the use of libraries by researchers attached to two major social science research institutions in India, viz. the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE) and Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research (SPIESR) by studying the extent of availability of resources in libraries of these two research institutions out of the total number of citations of the publications of the faculty members of these two institutions. It was found that the percentage of availability of cited resources is not encouraging in the libraries of these two institutions and the percentage of availability of cited resources by respective faculty members of these two institutions is more in SPIESR when compared with GIPE.

Psychometric properties of measurements obtained with the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale in an Icelandic probability based Internet sample

Internet surveys have become a very popular research tool. Relatively little attention has, however, been devoted to the possible changes in psychometric properties when measurements are obtained with Internet surveys. The Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) is the most widely used instrument for measuring the tendency to respond in a socially desirable way and is often used to validate other measures. The purpose of the current research is to evaluate the dimensionality and reliability of measurements obtained with the MCSDS and short forms of the scale in an Internet sample of the general public in Iceland. An e-mail invitation was sent to a sample of 1200 panel members drawn from the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) probability based panel, of those 536 participants completed all items on the MCSDS. Reliability estimates were in line with results from previous studies (α=.81 for the MCSDS data and α ranging from .59 to .75 for short forms). Using confirmatory factor analysis, a good fit was obtained for a one-factor model of measurements obtained with the MCSDS and its short forms (apart from significant chi square values in all cases but one), which generally supports the assumption of unidimensionality.

Merging person-centered care with translational research to improve the lives of older adults: creating community-based nursing research networks.

Translational research is a leading trend in science with the aim of bridging the research-practice gap to significantly speed the implementation of effective interventions in clinical practice. Integrating the values and preferences of older adults and their families into this process is critical to the success of translational research. Engaging communities in meaningful research is an important part of advancing translational science in which older adults are partners in developing solutions to the health needs of individuals within communities. The current article describes one approach to developing an infrastructure (i.e., community-based nursing research network) to support patient-centered care within translational research. Nurses are uniquely poised and prepared to assume leadership roles in community-based research networks to support a true collaboration among stakeholders that prizes the voices of older adults and integrates them into practice efforts.