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The gender stereotypes produced in Russian children's literature are examined in a review of 300+ preschool stories including Russian folktales, foreign traditional folktales, modern books by Soviet & post-Soviet authors, & modern books by foreign authors. Based on the assumption that gender identification is established in the early years of childhood, it is argued that preschool literature may strongly affect the gender identities & stereotypes of future adults. Traditional folktales by foreign authors are characterized by a clear separation between strong, dominating men & passive, dependent women, while Russian folktales often present a matriarchal stereotype marked by emotionally & materially independent female characters & weak men. In the modern stories, gender stereotypes are played out through interactions between children & parents. The Soviet literature portrays a traditional division of male & female family roles combined with a quasi-egalitarian role division in the sphere of work. Modern egalitarian literature evidences a more flexible division of family & work responsibilities, thereby promoting visions of a gender-free society. 44 References. T. Sevier

Written materials produced by several European anarchic-ideological terrorist organizations are analyzed to determine such groups' motivations & objectives for terrorist behavior. The need for a framework capable of increasing the validity of cross-cultural examinations of terrorist organizations is stressed; an approach based on conventional textual analysis is recommended. The analysis of Belgian, German, Italian, & French terrorist auto-propaganda revealed several similarities in the respective groups' documents including a denial of terrorist activity, the attempt to delineate their behavior as benefiting society, & the justification of their terrorist activity. Although organizations that are older tend to produce less written materials, it is speculated that this trend illustrates the groups' reduced concern in the results of their behavior. The benefits of studying terrorist documents from a textual analysis perspective are re-stated. J. W. Parker

In an effort to overcome the US Senate's continued resistance to ratification of the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Representative Lynn Woolsey & a group of other women brought a copy of a supportive letter signed by 100+ representatives to the offices of Senator Jesse Helms. Helm's refusal to meet with the women legislators & admonition to them to "act like ladies" as they were thrown from his office is viewed here as yet another example of "miscommunication" between men & women; examples of other instances of gendered miscommunication in US history are reviewed. This episode also demonstrates the perpetuation of a prejudicial distinction between the public & the private spheres in terms of what men & women are allowed to discuss & in what settings. The gendered nature of the public-private distinction made in several leading international human rights documents is elucidated, & a similar dichotomization between the public/male & private/female is identified in the literary form of the 18th-century epistolary novel. The designation of letter writing as an "appropriate" female activity, so long as such private missives were never made public, is described, & the disturbances to the social order thought to result from violations of this code are revealed in epistolary fiction by more modern women writers, including Helena Araujo, Tsitsi Dangarembga, & Janette Turner Hospital. 12 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Reviews the literature on gender & development, highlighting differences between feminist scholarship & that employing a world-systems perspective, & calling for greater collaboration between the two, though not at the expense of their unique outlooks. Traditional, feminist, & general theories of development in sociology are compared, showing how feminist-oriented research offers an alternative perspective on the functioning of the world economy & women's place within it. The micro-macro debate between feminist & world-systems scholars (respectively) in such research is also examined. 1 Table, 102 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Digital libraries are nowadays expected to contain more than books and articles. All relevant sources of information for a scholar should be available, including research data. However, does literature retrieval work for data sets as well? In the context of a requirement analysis of a data catalogue for quantitative Social Science research data, we tried to find answers to this question. We conducted two user studies with a total of 53 participants and found similarities and important differences in the users' needs when searching for data sets in comparison to those already known in literature search. In particular, quantity and quality of metadata are far more important in data set search than in literature search, where convenience is most important. In this paper, we present the methodology of these two user studies, their results and challenges for data set retrieval system that can be derived thereof. One of our key findings is that for empirical social scientists, the choice of research data is more relevant than the choice of literature; therefore they are willing to put more effort into the retrieval process. Due to our choice of use case, our initial findings are limited to the field of Social Sciences. However, because of the similar characteristics for data sets also in other research areas, such as Economics, we assume that our results are applicable for them as well.

"This paper examines the impact of North-South regional integration policies on growth, direct investment and migration flows, in the light of recent theoretical and empirical studies. It shows that many grey areas still exist in this field, owing mainly to uncertainties surrounding the processes of economic convergence and development. The uncertainties in question are strikingly illustrated by recent events affecting emerging countries (the Asian crisis and its repercussions). The paper is designed as follows. The first part sets down the main arguments for migratory behaviour, as they have been catalogued by microeconomic theory, and discusses the impact of regional integration policies on these arguments. It concludes that North-South regional integration offers a serious alternative to migration only if it has a chance to markedly change the living conditions and expectations of South country populations within a fairly short period of time - in less than a generation. The second part focuses on the consequences of open trade on South countries' long-term growth. It concludes that the beneficial effects of regional integration on growth come about through technology transfers and investment. The third part is devoted to the effects of regional integration on direct investment. It shows that inherent in present regional integration processes is the risk of disqualifying countries that are short on human and social capital and have small-sized domestic markets." (excerpt)

"This paper examines the impact of North-South regional integration policies on growth, direct investment and migration flows, in the light of recent theoretical and empirical studies. It shows that many grey areas still exist in this field, owing mainly to uncertainties surrounding the processes of economic convergence and development. The uncertainties in question are strikingly illustrated by recent events affecting emerging countries (the Asian crisis and its repercussions). The paper is designed as follows. The first part sets down the main arguments for migratory behaviour, as they have been catalogued by microeconomic theory, and discusses the impact of regional integration policies on these arguments. It concludes that North-South regional integration offers a serious alternative to migration only if it has a chance to markedly change the living conditions and expectations of South country populations within a fairly short period of time - in less than a generation. The second part focuses on the consequences of open trade on South countries' long-term growth. It concludes that the beneficial effects of regional integration on growth come about through technology transfers and investment. The third part is devoted to the effects of regional integration on direct investment. It shows that inherent in present regional integration processes is the risk of disqualifying countries that are short on human and social capital and have small-sized domestic markets." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Gender inequality in sciences is an ongoing unsolved issue. Many studies have been carried out to tackle the gender specific problems in scientific communication and scientific careers. The EU-Statistics ("She Figures") document the still dominant pattern of lower female presence in higher academic ranks in almost all European Union member states. There are discrepancies between EU science policy and national social policies. The prevailing "publish or perish" attitude, atypical employment as accepted norm and the forced international mobility are factors which hamper the young and female academics' scientific careers. How open for women are the so called "open initiatives"? Women are sceptical towards FLOSS (free/libre open source software), they feel intimidated by the male dominated "chilly" working climate. Only 13 percent of the international Wikipedia writers are female. Only articles on traditionally male topics as soccer are considered as relevant in the German Wikipedia and are allowed to "survive". There is almost no open access publishing in German gender studies. Generally the surveys of attitudes and practices of scholars on open access publishing ignore the gender variable. The only exception is a larger survey of the DFG. In this study women more often than men wish more training in open access publishing techniques.

"This survey will begin by briefly reviewing basic questions of measurement of the costs of job loss for different workers. Based on this overview, we will take stock of the basic facts that we would ideally like to know. Second, we will briefly review the empirical literature of the US. More extensive, it will serve as a benchmark for assessing what has been done, what issues have arisen, and what key substantive and methodological questions are outstanding. Third, we will compare these results with the available evidence from European countries. Thereby, we will mainly focus on EU member states. After we have summarized what we do actually know and what we still need to learn, the fourth section gives a concise introduction to the methodological issues involved when analysing the costs of job loss. There, we will also briefly address the question of comparability of estimates between different studies. The last section gives a brief overview over the available data in different countries, discusses the potential ahead, and suggests some concrete steps to be taken in terms of a common research strategy." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))