Why American Sociology Needs Biographical Sociology—European Style

Abstract

Life story methods in Europe commonly belong to the field of biographical sociology. This paper points out that biographical sociology is missing from American sociology and describes in-depth two well-known methods in this field in Europe, the narrative interview and objective hermeneutics. The absence of biographical sociology from U.S. sociology should be remedied, it is argued, for the following reasons: First, an analysis of biographical patterns could counteract the heavy emphasis on social structure in American sociology and enrich certain subfields within it. For example, some of the concepts used in European biographical sociology, such as the concept of the "trajectory" can be related to conceptions of agency set forth by American and British sociologists and thus enrich sociology overall. Second, biographical sociology can help counteract the heavy orientation towards quantitative research in American sociology without falling into the pitfalls of purely interpretive methodologies. And third, biographical sociology can significantly enrich the still missing link between culture and cognition.

Mehmet Hıfzı Özcan in Terms of Biographic Sociology

“…Biographies are very effective in economic, sportive, political, historical, pedagogical and psychological dimensions in social life (Jindra, 2014). For this reason, Biographical Sociology is the study of biographical processes in historical periods and It is a branch of sociology that plays a role in revealing its relations with the social structure.…”

“…Life story methods in Europe often fall into the field of biographical sociology. Because, in studies conducted to obtain life stories, data on life events such as date of birth, marital status, birth of children, education date and employment of the researched person are presented as an objective criterion (Jindra, 2014). While life stories show how the curious person lived his life, they also enable the researcher and the reader to see and understand the relationships, values and issues of that person's life (Gubrium & Holstein, 2001).…”

Exploring underexposed stories: the experienced lifecourse of financially excluded older adults

“…Exploring aged migrant trajectories and their differences and similarities calls for a biographical and lifecourse perspective (Warnes and Williams, 2006). Third, cultural, economic, social, historical and psychological contexts all influence how biographies are constructed, and life stories are themselves subject to (social) change (Cohler and Hostetler, 2003; Jindra, 2014). For this reason, it would be interesting to run more interview sessions (Nilsson et al ., 2003) or conduct longitudinal qualitative biographical research (Leonard and Burns, 2006; Hermanowicz, 2016).…”

“…Biographical research methods are used in the disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology and gerontology to explore experiences over the lifecourse (McAdams, 2005; Kenyon et al ., 2011; Jindra, 2014). However, several shortcomings in these methods have been identified.…”

The emerging ‘science of social work’ in the United States and German-speaking countries: A comparison

“…However, there are methods utilized in the German-speaking countries – qualitative in-depth methods such as the narrative interview and objective hermeneutics – which are well suited to understanding clients’ biographical trajectories as well as the conceptualization of the science–practice link advocated by European scholars. These, however, are more or less unheard of in the United States (Jindra, 2014). Similarly, Okpych and L-H Yu (2014), in their discussion of the possible changes needed to overcome the challenges of the EBP movement, argue thatgreater attention to context may require novel uses of research approaches that are closer to the ground and better at capturing the nuances of client preferences and treatment contexts, or combining these methods in novel ways with highly controlled studies.…”