The Roots of Linguistic Organization in a New Language

It is possible for a language to emerge with no direct linguistic history or outside linguistic influence. Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) arose about 70 years ago in a small, insular community with a high incidence of profound prelingual neurosensory deafness. In ABSL, we have been able to identify the beginnings of phonology, morphology, syntax, and prosody. The linguistic elements we find in ABSL are not exclusively holistic, nor are they all compositional, but a combination of both. We do not, however, find in ABSL certain features that have been posited as essential even for a proto-language. ABSL has a highly regular syntax as well as word-internal compounding, also highly regular but quite distinct from syntax in its patterns. ABSL, however, has no discernable word-internal structure of the kind observed in more mature sign languages: no spatially organized morphology and no evident duality of phonological patterning.     

Children removed from home by court order: Fathers' disenfranchised grief and reclamation of paternal functions

The study, based on in-depth interviews with 15 fathers in Israel, reports on fathers' emotional reactions to the court-ordered removal of their children from home. The findings show that all the fathers experienced the removal as a traumatic event, which utterly devalued them and annihilated their paternal identity. Although they suffered intense pain and loss well after their children were removed, their grief was disenfranchised as friends and family accused them of allowing the removal to happen. With this, most of the fathers acclimated to the removal and even reported an expansion of their parental identity. The discussion suggests some theoretical conceptualizations of their intense feelings of pain and loss.     

French Yellow Vests (Gilets Jaunes): Similarities and Differences With Occupy Movements

The Yellow Vests movement in France was the most widespread and violent protest movement France has seen since 1968. This research highlights the resemblances and dissimilarities between the Yellow Vests and other Occupy movements. We find similarities in movement origins around suddenly revealed economic issues and relative deprivation. We also find that the Yellow Vests resemble other Occupy movements in terms of a combined strategy of a diffused and countrywide occupation of public spaces alongside weekly mass protest, and a lack of central organization and rejection of leadership. The Yellow Vests, however, differ from other Occupy movements in the extreme violence of the weekly demonstrations. Despite its rejection by the media, violence did not affect widespread public approval. In addition, the Yellow Vests achieved most movement objectives in spite of the lack of effective leadership with whom politicians could negotiate.     

Public relations for peripheral places and their national media coverage patterns: The Israeli case

One of the ways to alter the negative image associated with peripheral locations and assist them in constructing a positive image in national media is by directing resources and maintaining a professional, skilled PR system. This article focuses on the relation between PR and coverage patterns in the press, and examines whether media coverage of locations with similar characteristics is influenced by the systematic use of PR. Israel provides a unique opportunity to examine this relation, due to the existence of three towns with extremely similar characteristics that during the time of this study differed only in their use of PR. Examining the relation between the use of PR and media coverage was accomplished using a variety of research methods, including quantitative and qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews.     

Subjective time discount rates among teenagers and adults: Evidence from Israel

This study is an empirical examination of the personal discount rates used by teenagers and adults. The participants answered a time-preference questionnaire and were asked about the bank interest paid for deposits. The results demonstrate that teenagers have a very high personal discount rate in comparison to adults. In addition, we found that receiving a regular allowance increases the teenagers’ willingness to wait. Our results indicate that the influence of teenagers’ poor financial knowledge, which ought to increase the personal discount rate, is stronger than the effect of their safety net that should reduce the personal discount rate.     

Circumcising the body: negotiating difference and belonging in Germany

ABSTRACT

The circumcision debate in Germany in 2012 is an exemplary case for symbolic struggles over national boundaries. The debate became a site for the negotiation of traditions practiced by religious minorities. We ask, first, how the clinical gaze constitutes Muslim and Jewish others. Second, we investigate how ‘writing around’ the debate’s center, bodily integrity, became meaningful through analogies to other practices said to harm it. We compare newspaper coverage in Germany, Israel and Turkey, and reveal transnational discursive dynamics that transgress national boundaries. We show how ‘otherness’ of Muslims and Jews remains present in a self-perceived secular, liberal imaginary.     

The role of need for contraception in the evaluation of interventions to improve access to family-planning methods

A nonrandomized experiment carried out in Jharkhand, India, shows how the effects of interventions designed to improve access to family-planning methods can be erroneously regarded as trivial when contraceptive use is utilized as dependent variable, ignoring women's need for contraception. Significant effects of the intervention were observed on met need (i.e., contraceptive use by women who need contraception) but not on contraceptive use (i.e., contraceptive use by women who may or may not need contraception). Met need captures the woman's success in overcoming barriers to access to family planning, whereas contraceptive use confounds this construct with risk of pregnancy and fertility desires. Exceptions to this rule are identified.     

Collective action of ethno-national minority groups and the cost of inaction: Arab Palestinians in Israel

ABSTRACT

Collective action requires resources, organization, leaders and political opportunities. In the case of disadvantaged minority groups, long-standing conflict with the majority, a closed political opportunity structure and the difficulty of acquiring resources, increases the costs and risks of the action. We argue that the development of such an action is a function of leaders’ perceptions about the cost of inaction (COI) and symbolic resources of the group, such as solidarity. Combining these evaluations creates three trajectories: growth, restriction and decline. We examine this argument by four collective actions carried out by Arab Palestinians citizens in Israel to improve education. The findings show that leaders increased efforts even if they assessed opportunities are limited when they thought that COI is high, since inaction means not only the loss of instrumental costs but also the loss of potential symbolic gains such as recognition of the group collective identity.     

The Endowment Effect on Academic Chores Trade-Off (ACTO)

The present study aimed to investigate three questions concerning Kahneman’s Endowment Effect. (a) Does the Endowment Effect apply to negotiations on intangible items such as intellectual resources and time invested in academic chores? (b) Does the sequence in which proposals are presented to the negotiators influence the Endowment Effect and, if so, how? (c) Does the Endowment Effect have the same impact in on-going negotiations as in one-shot negotiations? The investigation focused on the trade-off made by students between advanced courses and seminars, which we term as Academic Chores Trade-Off (ACTO). The results indicated the existence of the Endowment Effect in negotiations on the above intangible items (ACTO) but could also be partially interpreted as reflecting the negotiators attempts to improve their positions. The results also supported the existence of a Sequence Effect combined with an intensification of the Endowment Effect. The Endowment Effect in on-going negotiations was not found to be significantly different from that in the one-shot format.