The Biographical Experience of Being a Stay-at-Home Mother of a Large Family Versus Online Activity. A Case Study

The aim of the Migrating Biographies project is to analyse and categorise meanings in the autobiographical narratives of the second, third and fourth generations in Poland of ‘re-emigrant families’ from Bosnia, which reveal dynamic transformations of biographical identity. The chapter presents a synthetic summary of selected (re)interpretations, which illustrate changes that take place generationally and are the dynamic and ongoing processes that remake community through intergenerational identity conceptualisation which is a result of bottom up individual and community biographical work. The theoretical framework of the project is based on the interpretative-constructivist and critical humanist paradigm, where qualitative research strategy is meant to reinforce the inductive generation of empirical material. Data were collected through autobiographical narrative interviews and through oral history. Research participants (25 people) were recruited on the basis of their unique biographical characteristics as members of a ‘post-Yugoslavian’ family and their specific situation within their family systems, which made them the medium for intergenerational experience of repeated migration, from Galicia to Bosnia (end of 19th century) and from Bosnia back to Poland (in 1946).

This paper explores how refugees in the UK perceive the relation between their experience of migration and their psychosocial health. Autobiographical narrative interviews were carried out with fifteen refugees residing in the UK. The findings reveal a contrast between the negative stereotypes concerning refugees’ psychosocial health and the participants’ own perceptions. Two of the three emerging narratives suggest a more balanced view of refugees’ psychosocial health, since- in contrast to the stereotypes- most participants did not perceive this through the lens of ‘vulnerability’. The third narrative revealed that a hostile social context can negatively shape refugees’ perceptions of their psychosocial health. This runs counter to the stereotype of refugees as being exclusively responsible for their ‘passiveness’ and therefore for the problems they face.

This article reconstructs identity transformations that manifest themselves in the biographies of female activists with disabilities. The empirical material was collected through autobiographical narrative interviews. The author identifies key stages and turning points for these identity transformations. She also analyzes the role of significant others in the process of identity transformations and becoming an activist. The analysis of narratives of women with congenital disabilities demonstrates that the incorporation of disability as an element of individual self-definition is an important factor contributing to identity transformations. In the analyzed narratives, disability represents a biographical resource and, like identity, is processual in nature. Although it accompanies the individual from birth, it undergoes rein­terpretations at different stages of life.

BackgroundProblematic usage of the internet (PUI) is an umbrella term, referring to a variety of maladaptive online behaviors linked to functional impairment. There is ongoing need for the development of instruments capturing not only PUI severity, but also the online activity types. The Internet Severity and Activities Questionnaire (ISAAQ), previously developed to address this need, required further refinement and validation. MethodsCross-sectional data was gathered in two separate samples (South Africa n = 3275, USA-UK n = 943) using the Internet Severity and Activities Addiction Questionnaire (ISAAQ). Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to examine the properties of the scale (Part A of the ISAAQ) and differential item functioning against demographic parameters. The severity scale of the ISAAQ was optimized by eliminating the poorest performing items using an iterative approach and examining validity metrics. Cluster analyses was used to examine internet activities and commonalities across samples (Part B of the ISAAQ). ResultsOptimization of ISAAQ using IRT yielded a refined 10-item version (ISAAQ-10), with less differential item functioning and a robust unidimensional factor structure. The ISAAQ-10 severity score correlated strongly with established measures of internet addiction (Compulsive Internet Use Scale [Person's r = 0.86] and the Internet Addiction Test-10 [r = 0.75]). Combined with gaming activity score it correlated moderately strongly with the established Internet Gaming Disorder Test (r = 0.65). Exploratory cluster analyses in both samples identified two groups, one of “low-PUI” [98.1–98.5%], and one of “high-PUI” [1.5–1.9%]. Multiple facets of internet activity appeared elevated in the high-PUI cluster. DiscussionThe ISAAQ-10 supersedes the earlier longer version of the ISAAQ, and provides a useful, psychometrically robust measure of PUI severity (Part A), and captures the extent of engagement in a wide gamut of online specific internet activities (Part B). ISAAQ-10 constitutes a valuable objective measurement tool for future studies.

Jeffrey David I\irk and Adam Mrozowicki (eds.), Biography and European Policy An Innovative Approach to European Policy Studies Lueven: Lueven University Press 2013, pp. 228 ISBN: 9789058679710The Editors and Authors of the collected volume (that an outcome of the international workshop Realist biography and European policy) assume that integration of the tradition of research and critical realism (as proposed by Margaret Archer) is not only possible, but it can be also beneficial for the exploration of newly emerging research filled at the European level. (p. 13). This declaration, however, should be reconsidered in many points (some of them will be discussed below). The idea of the book very interesting and thought-provoking. It worth the attention of scholars in social sciences and policy makers.The volume consist of 8 chapters organized into 3 main sections. It begins with 2 theoretical chapters on the key ideas of critical realism. The next part (chapters 3-5) offers an overview of three European projects (Sostris, Euroidentities and ENRIEAST) that aimed to understand ordinary citizens of Europe and their problems, attitudes, meaning systems, orientation horizons and frames of references and knowledge horizons from their own perspective. This bottom-up perspective sometimes disregarded by European policy makers seems to be of crucial importance for the creation of Europe (a sense of being European). Finally, the last sections (chapters 6-8) of the book concentrate on various aspects of sphere of work that are intertwined with the process of becoming Europe/an.Before discussing selected chapters covering different topics, I would like to address briefly three issues: 1) running the risk of oversimplification while trying to integrate (allegedly) similar theoretical concepts and methods of empirical data analysis; 2) recent perception of methods that have become very popular and are perceived as homogenous and 3) 'night' (chaotic and inevitably coupled with processes of severe suffering) side of social reality.1) Any attempt to combine different theoretical and methodological approaches may imply danger of (over)simplification of the research problem as well as unconscious overlooking or / and wilful overpassing of crucial differences. In this volume the Authors endeavour not only to put together critical realism with methods, but also try to bring to a common denominator various concepts (i.e. reflexivity and biographical work) as well as refer and apply various approaches to analysis (mainly: Biographic-Narrative Interpretative Method (BNIM) as developed by Prue Chamberlayne and Tom Wengraf, Daniel Bertaux's life history method and autobiographical narrative interview method by Fritz Schutze). Although, many of these ideas are intriguing and promising, some others, raise many doubts and questions. Therefore, this task seems to be risky in itself.2) 'Biographical methods' are sometimes seen as being very similar (with national variants) as well as effortless and facile. Consequently, many researchers treat them as an easy way of collecting and analysing data. Some others claim that the results of such attempts to understand social reality are unreliable or of no significance. To the contrary: methods draw on different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. As a matter of fact, they present diverse standpoints on the epistemic power of autobiographical story telling that may reveal and social processes, on the extent to which informants are able to present their preferable face (see: p. 26-27 in the volume) and on what might be reflected in their extempore rendering. In short, what can be really reconstructed from the told story of one's life. Moreover, analysis of any biography usually very time-consuming and demanding. They require solid sociological, linguistic and socio-psychological knowledge. …

What autobiographical narratives tell us about the life course. Contributions of qualitative sequential analytical methods.

The psychoanalysts Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich claimed in their widely discussed article (1977) that Germans would be incapable of mourning about and repenting of the disaster of the Second World War, the millions of deaths and suffering of the victims of Nazi terror. They argued that Germans would repress or deny what had happened to avoid suffering from severe depression. The Mitscherlich thesis is criticised in this study by displaying the wide landscape of deep personal involvement (called a `trajectory') in various autobiographical differentations of living within a world of total collective moral deterioration. The research necessary to prove or disprove such a thesis works with `autobiographical narrative interviews' conceived by the author. The research style of meticulous structural descriptions is developed to utilise formal text indicators for localising such phenomena like fading out, delayed recollection, and compartmentalised phases of working-through. Typical for this method, its data arise from interviewing single cases, here that of an ideologically non-committed German. As a young German soldier in the Second World War, he too showed phases of incapacity to mourn and repent. But the informant did not remain in that state. Severe crisis experiences in his later private life led to sudden recollections of encounters with victims of Nazi terror. He started to mourn and repent. Besides empirical evidence of the feeling of personal entanglement in collective guilt also among those not engaged in intentional acts of immoral behaviour, we encounter the interesting phenomenon of delayed mourning about and repenting of the moral deterioration within the collectivity of `We, the Germans'. This finding is corroborated by data from many narrative interviews with other Germans who were non-committed to Nazi ideology but active in the German war machinery.

The article presents the importance of the family and its support from the perspective of a person diagnosed with a mental disorder. The given fragment of findings comes from a study whose primary subject was the socio-biographical experiences of people with a mental disorder who benefited from various forms of institutional support. The article focuses on the impact of an institution such as the family, in particular on the importance of its support for people experiencing a mental disorder. The study was conducted in an interpretative paradigm using qualitative methods – an autobiographical narrative interview. A total of 60 narratives were collected with narrators of both genders between 2019 and 2023; the youngest interviewee was 19 years old and the oldest was 65. The analysis of the material allowed us to generate the basic types of families and the type of support present in them.

While recent studies have focused extensively on the reflexive use of categories and methodologies in research on migrants and refugees, they have paid less attention to individuals whose parents are migrants. Previous studies have noted that the terms second generation migrants and migrant descendants are centered on migration, thereby homogenizing experiences and deepening social exclusion of the people they define. However, we have less understanding of research participants’ perceptions of these categories. Additionally, the focus of most research has been on non-white descendants of migrants, which risks aligning scientific discourse with mainstream narratives that problematize some groups while silencing others. This article bridges this gap by examining the perception of research categories among people raised in Germany by Polish parents. It presents interviewees’ negotiations of categories in the context of their status as an invisible minority as well as their access to various class resources. Drawing from autobiographical narrative interviews, the study first demonstrates how the positioning of interlocutors as invisible begins at the micro level through everyday interactions with the mainstream society and their families. It then reveals the mechanisms of this process: ascribing identifications, creating an anti-migrant environment, exerting pressure on integration, and limiting resources. It argues that invisibility limits interlocutors’ possibilities to negotiate a sense of belonging and express self-identification. Engaging participants in category negotiations and autobiographical narrative interviews, along with considering the class perspective, expands the space for reflecting on identity and helps to align categories with participants’ lived experiences.

The article presents a case study of an autobiographical narrative interview with Adam—a young influencer who creates books-related content. Special attention is given to Adam’s relationship with his audience and how it influences his self-perception. Of significant importance to the influencer’s biography are Adam’s non-heteronormative sexual orientation and the stigma associated with it. Using the sociolinguistic tools of Fritz Schütze’s biographical approach and its process structures, Erving Goffman’s theory of stigma, and Anselm Strauss’s concept of social worlds, I attempt to reconstruct the processes related to influencer activity on social media. The analysis reveals tensions between the ideological vision of one’s duties and the necessity to meet the expectations of the audience, including in the context of accusations related to the commodification of queerness. The text attempts to capture the possible biographical meanings of being an influencer and the identity-related entanglements of this role. It also highlights potential disruptions to biographical work caused by activities within social media.

This chapter critically explores the autobiographical narrative method developed by German sociologist Fritz Schutze. Schutze's biographical method, used in the analysis in this chapter, provides clearly defined instructions regarding the autobiographical storytelling process. This chapter focuses on self-narratives by two migrant women, conducted as part of a large research project on identity formation in Europe, who at the time of the interviews resided and worked in the United Kingdom. It discusses various approaches to biographical interviewing, situating Schutze's approach in a wider methodological field. Before presenting the analysis, some of the method's restrictions must be addressed. In Loes's story, the urge to work through difficult issues came out in three major narrative themes that wove through her two-hour account. The analysis of Loes's self-narrative makes clear that 'Europe' is a changing territorial space of global reach that, as part and outcome of colonial processes, has been discursively constructed as a 'white zone'.

Background: The production of autobiographical narratives requires linguistic structures and the ability to access and generate both semantic information and episodic details of personal events. Aims: This study investigated autobiographical narratives produced by individuals with established semantic memory impairments (semantic variant primary progressive aphasia; svPPA) or episodic memory impairments (amnestic mild cognitive impairment; aMCI) in order to investigate whether different categories of memory impairment would manifest different linguistic deficits. Methods & Procedures: We used the Autobiographical Interview and Quantitative Production Analysis methods to investigate linguistic production during autobiographical recall. Additional investigations compared the production of present and past tense inflections in order to look for morpho-syntactic differences in the sets of episodic and semantic information. Outcomes and Results: The results showed that individuals with svPPA produced fewer well-formed sentences when producing episodic details and produced fewer past tense inflections when producing semantic details in comparison to healthy controls. The aMCI group produced fewer episodic utterances but produced a larger number of words in the set of semantic details, in comparison to healthy controls. Conclusions: It is possible that specific demands related to the type of message being conveyed, or high cognitive load during retrieval of episodic information may affect the narration process. Difficulty in the retrieval of episodic information is likely related to reduced production of episodic utterances in individuals with aMCI and may be related to deficits in linguistic production in svPPA. We propose that the results in the set of semantic details are connected to previous findings relating to semantic memory and deficits in discourse coherence in both groups.

The paper reconstructs the ways of attributing meanings to IT specialists’ careers at BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) centers in Poland. The findings rely on empirical data, collected through autobiographical narrative interviews. The technique of analysis applied in the study was inspired by grounded theory methodology and allowed for the identification of a basic social process at the analytical stage, namely, “career planning.” On the one hand, the analysis also showed how IT specialists’ careers are given meanings concerning career planning; there seem to be three main ways of understanding one’s career in IT: (1) in terms of reaching economic and social stability, (2) as a transition period in a career as an IT specialist, (3) with regard to becoming an expert in IT. On the other hand, the second axis of analysis has been conceptualized, which is comprised of other subjective and objective elements that may shape career planning. These include the biographical experiences of work, the context of the Polish BPO industry, and career planning resources. Furthermore, a typology consisting of three ways of attributing meanings to IT specialists’ careers at BPO centers has been put forward and analyzed.

The article discusses the issue of the risk and protective factors in the school environment of women who, during their adolescence, were formally controlled by the institutions of the system to prevent the demoralization of children and adolescents. The theoretical basis for the analyses was the concept of resilience. The main research problem is presented in the following question: What (risk and protective) factors occur in individual experiences of women – former charges of social rehabilitation centres. The study used the method of individual cases, while the technique of obtaining data was an autobiographical narrative interview. Based on the analysis of the obtained material, risk and protective factors in the school environment of narrators were listed. The configuration of these factors was reconstructed and their protective or risky value from the point of view of the development of the demoralization process was estimated. The most important conclusion is that the same factors (close relationship with a teacher, inadequate education) constituted a different value in the narrators' lives. The studies also showed the processual nature of the formation of the cumulative risk in the school environment. The conclusions confirm the importance of a case-by-case approach in assessing the value on individual (protective and risk) factors.

The article presents empirical material that allows to outline the situation of contemporary women experiencing difficult motherhood compared to women twenty years ago described by Małgorzata Kościelska (1998). Qualitative research was attended by 18 women who experienced difficult motherhood associated with unsuccessful prenatal diagnosis due to disability, genetic disease or birth defect. Fritz Schütz's autobiographical narrative interview was used. An analysis of the content of the respondents' statements reveals their concern not only for the child's health and physical development, but also for their mental well-being. Diagnosis of birth defects and genetic anomalies does not inhibit the development of the mother's emotional bond. Women undergo prenatal testing more consciously than in the 1990s. Although they are afraid of such tests, they are more worried about the child's health than about being abandoned by their husband. Their motivation to undergo prenatal tests results from their desire to remedy developmental abnormalities quickly. The possibility of pregnancy termination procedure causes a lot of extreme emotions and moral doubts. Half of the women surveyed positively assess the support within the support groups and advice on online forums, while they rarely receive institutional psychological support (5 people out of 18 respondents). Most women emphasize social ostracism. Despite the passage of 20 years since the publication of Difficult Motherhood by Małgorzata Kościelska (1998), the development of new technologies, medicine, and socio-political transformation, the situation of mothers awaiting the birth of a child and experiencing an unsuccessful diagnosis has not changed radically and requires many systemic changes.