Exploring the development of Slovenian sociological science: ontology analysis of scientific bibliographical data

Abstract

One way to demonstrate the research focus and progress in a scientific field is through scientific publishing. Scientific articles are a starting point for analyzing the main topics, concerns, and author networks within a specific domain. This way, we can track the development of the discipline. Through publications, researchers create narratives that reveal the direction and development of specific disciplines. These narratives help form scientific paradigms. The main goal of this article is to detect and discuss the development of predominant scientific topics in particular period of Slovenian sociological science. The analysis starts with the emergence of the transition process from non-democratic Yugoslavia towards the independent Republic of Slovenia and onwards to contemporary times. We analyzed 774 scientific articles published between 1984 and 2022 in the journal Social Science Forum, which had an impact factor of 0.175 in 2022. The findings indicate that Slovenian sociologists’ research interests reflect historical transformations–from the transition to independence to EU accession. We use ontology-based analysis with OntoGen to track these thematic shifts systematically. This positions our work as a localized application of established text-mining approaches. The method applied allows us to uncover patterns of knowledge production tied to key sociopolitical moments in Slovenian history.