Heine Andersen

Influence and reputation in the social sciences - how much do researchers agree?

The existence of hierarchies based on reputation in modern science is indisputable. A set of common scientific journals is often assumed to be instrumental in the formation of these hierarchies. However, the character of the hierarchies, how monolithic/pluralistic they are and the functions of this differentiation have been discussed and caused controversy. The article brings together results from a survey of 788 Danish researchers, mainly from the social sciences, concerning their assessments of the most influential researchers and most important journals. The rankings indicate a pluralistic picture and only a moderate degree of consensus among researchers. Comparisons with (the few) other surveys and with citation data do not suggest this to be a peculiarity of Danish social scientists, however.

The norm of universalism in sciences. Social origin and gender of researchers in Denmark

Implied by the norm of universalism in modern science, known from Mertons CUDOS-normset, is the demand that scientific careers should be open to talents, independent of personalattributes such as race, religion, class, and gender. In spite of a large amount of studies related toCUDOS-norms very few deals with class origin of researchers. Based on a survey among a sampleof 788 Danish researchers this article investigates class bias, compared to gender bias inresearcher recruitment and careers, and researcher assessments of impartiality and objectivity ofevaluations and reward system. The data demonstrate very strong class bias, and also confirm thewell-known gender bias in recruitment, class bias being the strongest. This is shown to be mainlybecause of bias in the educational system, however. Concerning later career attainment bias is alsofound, but much weaker, and most pronounced concerning social origin. Regarding researcherassessments of impartiality there are no indications of strong mistrust among researchers ingeneral; nor are there significant differences in degree of trust in reward system, conditioned byclass origin or gender. In conclusion, the analysis does not lend strong support to an assumption ofdeviance from norms of universalism.

Political attitudes and cognitive convictions among Danish social science researchers

Interview data from a survey among Danish researchers, mainly from social sciences (all disciplines, about on third of all) are used to examine connections between researcher political attitudes and their disciplinary cognitive paradigms. Included are researchers’ convictions concerning world view hypotheses, their basic assumptions regarding the subject matter in their fields of study, e.g., individuals, social action, and society as a whole, and their epistemic ideals and goals. Political attitude is indicated by researchers’ voting in the 1994 general election of the Danish Parliament.The results show big differences between social science disciplines regarding voting pattern. The analysis also clearly demonstrates connections between disciplinary cognitive convictions and political attitudes. The connections are interpreted as expressions of hermeneutic, historical links between political discourse formations and disciplinary paradigms.

Gender inequality and paradigms in the social sciences

The article is based on a survey of 788 Danish researchers, mainly from the social sciences, and analyses differences between female and male researchers concerning cognitive styles and cognitive convictions. Sandra Hardings portrait of modern science as androcentric and characterized by a set of gender-related dualisms is taken as a point of departure, and the results by and large show gender differences which can be related to this picture. Male researchers give more importance to methodological ideals taken from natural science, objectivity, mathematical methods, rationality, universality and cumulative results, etc., than female researchers do. These differences are shown to be correlated with the degree of power orientation of research topics.