Title: Social Research Methods 1 Documentary and Historical Methods Week 4 Life History, Oral History and N
1Social Research Methods 1Documentary and
Historical Methods Week 4 Life History, Oral
History and Narrative Approaches
2Historical methods of social research
- Exploring social life in the past
- ...in order to...
- ...understand dimensions of social change...
- ...by means of....
3Documents...
- statistics
- official records
- journals
- diaries
- personal correspondence
- written memoirs
4Visual images...
5Oral accounts of....
- ...personal lives...
- ...lived over periods of social change
- ? Life history research
6What 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.
7The 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.
8Characteristics 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.
9The 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).
10Example 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
11Conducting 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.
125 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.
13Special 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
-
-
14Managing 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)
18Analysing 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.
19The 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)
20Example 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...
21Advantages 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.
22The 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.