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Social Research Methods 1 Documentary and Historical Methods Week 4 Life History, Oral History and N

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lived over periods of social change. Life history research. What is life history research? ... An Oral History of Working Class Childhood and Youth 1889-1939 ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Social Research Methods 1 Documentary and Historical Methods Week 4 Life History, Oral History and N


1
Social Research Methods 1Documentary and
Historical Methods Week 4 Life History, Oral
History and Narrative Approaches
2
Historical methods of social research
  • Exploring social life in the past
  • ...in order to...
  • ...understand dimensions of social change...
  • ...by means of....

3
Documents...
  • statistics
  • official records
  • journals
  • diaries
  • personal correspondence
  • written memoirs

4
Visual images...
5
Oral accounts of....
  • ...personal lives...
  • ...lived over periods of social change
  • ? Life history research

6
What is life history research?
  • The investigation of the past or present by
    means of personal recollections, memories,
    evocations and life stories.
  • A systematic collection of the voiced experiences
    of real people, kept for posterity.
  • Interpretation of a persons life as a biography
    or career.
  • Data that is solicited rather than already
    present in existing documents.

7
The purpose of life / oral history
  • To tap knowledge of historical times of people
    still living - especially ordinary people
  • e.g. Paul Thompson (1992) The Edwardians The
    Remaking of British Society, 2nd edition.
  • To learn about how people understand and make
    sense of aspects of social life
  • e.g. Stephen Humphries (1981) Hooligans or
    Rebels? An Oral History of Working Class
    Childhood and Youth 1889-1939
  • Robert Bogdan (1974) Being Different The
    Autobiography of Jane Fry.

8
Characteristics of life history research
  • Research is participant-orientated.
  • Research comes from an interpretive standpoint.
  • Roots in early Sociology
  • Thomas and Znanieckis The Polish Peasant (1918)
  • Shaws The Natural History of a Delinquent Career
    (1931).
  • More recent interest in the structure and purpose
    of stories and narrative forms of talk
  • e.g. Labov 1972 Riesman 1993.

9
The Life History Method
  • Goal to gain original information and
    reminiscences (Lance 1978)
  • Large sample mix of structured
    semi-structured interview techniques.
  • Small samples or individuals mix of
    semi-structured unstructured techniques
    participant observation.
  • Multiple sessions
  • Oral History several sessions over a few weeks
  • Life History Analysis sessions lasting a few
    hours repeated every 1 or 2 weeks over several
    years (Plummer).

10
Example of a Life-Story Interview Guide(Thompson
(2000) The Voice of the Past, 3rd edition)
  • Preliminaries
  • Grandparents generation
  • Parents
  • Siblings/cousins/uncles/aunts
  • Daily life in childhood
  • Community and class
  • School
  • Employment
  • Leisure and courting
  • Marriage and children
  • Changing daily life
  • Later life
  • Conclusion

11
Conducting a life history interview (Thompson
1988)
  • Dont
  • Talk too much
  • Interrupt
  • Impose your own views
  • Contradict or argue
  • Makes encouraging sounds (if quality of recording
    important)
  • Rush away as soon as the interview ends.
  • Do
  • Be prepared
  • Be friendly and reassuring
  • Be clear (meaning, audibility)
  • Show an interest
  • Be flexible in use of standardised research
    instruments
  • Be prepared for interviewees to find some
    reminiscences distressing.

12
5 questions to ask of your research (Plummer
2001)
  • What? (the substantive question)
  • Why? (the social science question)
  • How? (the technical question)
  • Consequences? (ethical and political questions)
  • Effects? (personal questions)
  • Consider each set of questions before, during and
    after each interview.
  • Ethical issues fully informed, safeguard from
    harm, confidentiality, anonymity, intrusion.

13
Special issues
  • Oral history
  • learning about the past and...
  • archiving material for future researchers /
    society.
  • Implications for
  • quality of recording required
  • on-going consent
  • anonymity of participants.
  • Example of archived life history material  
  • www.qualidata.ac.uk/edwardians
  •  

14
Managing the data
  • Data management
  • main file / analytical files memos / personal
    research diary.
  • Transcription
  • very time consuming
  • first stage in analysis - ideally done asap after
    interview
  • level of detail wanted?
  • feedback to participants?
  • use different fonts / number exchanges.
  • Approaches to analysis
  • thematic / comparative
  • narrative.

15
  • Narratives are...
  • ...storied forms of talk...underlying themes
    about a central event or feature of the
    narrators life
  • ...about identity
  • ... a way of seeking resolution
  • ...a reflection of cultural forms and values.

16
  • The only time I felt poor and I did feel this.
    Because the war had started in 1939 and I was
    thirteen and the school had left to be evacuated,
    they allowed me to leave school at thirteen
    although the school age was fourteen. And my
    mother (LAUGHS) went and found me a job at
    Broadleys the tailors. Can you imagine going to
    a top quality shop as poor as a church mouse? And
    she was told that the uniform, you had to provide
    the uniform for shop work in those days, and I
    was told the uniform was black. So Lillian
    arrives at Broadleys, a shop where all the
    people from Park Road used to get their clothes
    on appro and send them back if they didnt like
    em. .. ...And Lillian arrives from X in her
    black crêpe dress cut down. Uneven hem because
    the crêpe in those days wasnt crêpe as it is now
    and in this shop with all the ladies or all the
    assistants ... And Ive never felt so
    embarrassed in all my life cos they made me feel
    so (pause), I dunno. But my mother, because of
    the area we come from, didnt see anything in
    this. She didnt see what shed done to a young
    girl who erm (pause). Cos er, thats how life was
    in those days. (Lillian, aged 75)

17
  • I think people were nicer in those times. They
    helped each other. But I dont think I personally
    could live in (those times). Im talking about
    now what I see of London and that, and how this
    area was. I dont like squalor. That hurts me how
    I read how (town) was. If you read that book on
    (town), its disgusting and I dont like that. I
    dont think I could have lived with that.
    (Lillian, aged 75)

18
Analysing narratives
  • Descriptive, thematic, structural?
  • Concerned with the whole story or specific
    components/ categories?
  • Concerned with the content or the form?
  • Echoes of cultural repertoires epic tragic
    comic etc.
  • Lieblich et al (1998) identified 4 approaches to
    narrative analysis
  • holistic-content holistic-form
  • categorical-content categorical-form.

19
The narrative form
  • Labov (1972) Language in the Inner City
  • Abstract (optional)
  • Orientation (who? when? where?)
  • Complicating action (core narrative)
  • Evaluation (so what?)
  • Resolution
  • Coda (handing back the conversational lead)

20
Example Lillians story
  • Abstract The only time I felt poor..
  • Orientation wartime, evacuation, leaving
    school, mother getting her a job, Broadleys as a
    shop an environment.
  • Complicating action arrival in crepe dress,
    embarrassment
  • Evaluation how the event made her feel, her
    mothers lack of understanding.
  • Resolution - ?
  • Coda Cos thats how life was in those days...

21
Advantages and disadvantages of life history
approaches
  • Key advantages
  • Rich
  • Captures experiences for posterity
  • Can be representative
  • Involves both interviewer and interviewee.
  • Key disadvantages
  • Retrospective biases and memory lapses
  • Small samples not representative
  • Large samples expensive and unwieldy
  • Time consuming.

22
The Assignment
  • Due in at end of Week 1 of the Spring Semester.
  • An analysis in 1500 words of
  • Either...2 or 3 media stories
  • or...a sample of advertisements.
  • Your work cannot be marked without copies of
    material analysed.
  • Different questions asked of each option.
  • Be clear what analytical approach you are
    adopting.
  • Be analytical not just descriptive.
  • Relate your analysis to wider sociological
    themes.
  • Include references to methodological literature.
  • Demonstrate awareness of the strengths and
    limitations of the methodological approach you
    have adopted.
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