PhD thesis on Polish workers - combining grounded theory methodology and biographical method
Dear All,
since I am new in the Methodspace, I would like to briefly present myself before I move to the topic of this post. I am Adam Mrozowicki. I have just defended my PhD thesis on 'Coping with social change. Life strategies of workers in Poland after the end of state socialism', at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. I am a sociologist, and - as my family name might indicate :) - I am Polish.
In my PhD thesis, I combined grounded theory methodology and biographical method (Schuetze's variant of biographical narrative interview technique) to study the problems of working-class agency and subjectivity in the situation of radical transition to capitalism in Poland.
Summary of the thesis can be found on:
http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/doctoraatsverdediging/cm/3H05/3H050291.htm
(please scroll down below Dutch summary for English one)
I would be interested in all discussions concerning the role and the place of theory in qualitative data analysis, the relevance of abduction in 'generating theory from the data', as well as the application of critical realist perspective in empirical research.
Even though I might have limited time in the nearest days to post and reply to emails - due to my transition to Poland after some years of living in Belgium - I am looking forward to further exchange of thoughts and ideas!
And for those interested in more general description of my PhD work - please have a look at the short summary below.
All the best wishes,
Adam
'Coping with social change. Life strategies of workers in Poland after the end of state socialism'
The concerns of the people, whose experiences were studied in this book, rarely make it through to the academic discourse and political praxis in Central and Eastern Europe. In the public discourse and many sociological accounts, manual workers tend to be represented as the passive recipients of structural constraints, liberal ideologies, and cultural beliefs acquired in the state socialist reality.
But how far this one-dimensional understanding is able to explain the diversity of the actual ways of coping with social change adopted by workers after the end of state socialism? In order to address this question, this book turns to workers themselves, to their life strategies and biographical experiences. It reconstructs the processes of adapting to and of resisting structural changes in working-class milieux in one of the industrial regions of Poland (Silesia).
On the basis of an in-depth analysis of 166 biographical interviews with blue-collar workers, some more general conclusions are formulated. Workers, with whom we talked in Silesia, rarely resembled the passive puppets of historical forces. It was their ability to reflect upon their life, upon their deeply-ingrained ethos and upon their social circumstances, which was the foundation of their – often inconsistent and hybrid - efforts to overcome socially imposed limitations in the new capitalist reality. Emphasising the potential of agency among Polish workers, this book might attract attention not only of those interested in post-socialism, working class and sociological theory, but also of everybody inclined to think critically about the recent history of Central and Eastern Europe.
since I am new in the Methodspace, I would like to briefly present myself before I move to the topic of this post. I am Adam Mrozowicki. I have just defended my PhD thesis on 'Coping with social change. Life strategies of workers in Poland after the end of state socialism', at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. I am a sociologist, and - as my family name might indicate :) - I am Polish.
In my PhD thesis, I combined grounded theory methodology and biographical method (Schuetze's variant of biographical narrative interview technique) to study the problems of working-class agency and subjectivity in the situation of radical transition to capitalism in Poland.
Summary of the thesis can be found on:
http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/doctoraatsverdediging/cm/3H05/3H050291.htm
(please scroll down below Dutch summary for English one)
I would be interested in all discussions concerning the role and the place of theory in qualitative data analysis, the relevance of abduction in 'generating theory from the data', as well as the application of critical realist perspective in empirical research.
Even though I might have limited time in the nearest days to post and reply to emails - due to my transition to Poland after some years of living in Belgium - I am looking forward to further exchange of thoughts and ideas!
And for those interested in more general description of my PhD work - please have a look at the short summary below.
All the best wishes,
Adam
'Coping with social change. Life strategies of workers in Poland after the end of state socialism'
The concerns of the people, whose experiences were studied in this book, rarely make it through to the academic discourse and political praxis in Central and Eastern Europe. In the public discourse and many sociological accounts, manual workers tend to be represented as the passive recipients of structural constraints, liberal ideologies, and cultural beliefs acquired in the state socialist reality.
But how far this one-dimensional understanding is able to explain the diversity of the actual ways of coping with social change adopted by workers after the end of state socialism? In order to address this question, this book turns to workers themselves, to their life strategies and biographical experiences. It reconstructs the processes of adapting to and of resisting structural changes in working-class milieux in one of the industrial regions of Poland (Silesia).
On the basis of an in-depth analysis of 166 biographical interviews with blue-collar workers, some more general conclusions are formulated. Workers, with whom we talked in Silesia, rarely resembled the passive puppets of historical forces. It was their ability to reflect upon their life, upon their deeply-ingrained ethos and upon their social circumstances, which was the foundation of their – often inconsistent and hybrid - efforts to overcome socially imposed limitations in the new capitalist reality. Emphasising the potential of agency among Polish workers, this book might attract attention not only of those interested in post-socialism, working class and sociological theory, but also of everybody inclined to think critically about the recent history of Central and Eastern Europe.
Tags: biographical, change, grounded, poland, social, theory
Comment
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Comment by Muhammad Zubir on February 10, 2010 at 6:34am -
Whateveer it is, I've to congrate due to the comletion of your study. My self still in the process of analysing my data and I use GT and RBV theory. I've heard The Abductive Reasoning in a QRA Confrence last January. Presented by a person who did a medical studies. The speaker were Prof Sharan Meriam from Georgia University and Prof Atma Wheteley from Curtin University.
Best of Luck
Zubir (Muhammad)
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Comment by Adam Mrozowicki on February 9, 2010 at 4:30pm -
Hi Glen and Muhammad,
Thanks for your comments. I know an earlier article of J. Reichertz published in German. I learnt a lot from it as indeed my method was close to abductive reasoning. I started with some general ideas from Bourdieu's theory and then - confronted with much less deterministic forms of agency in my data - moved incresingly towards the notions of reflexivity and critical realism.
Muhammad: In fact I was closer to Glaserian GTM since my way of theorising was not so strongly embedded in SI background. It was rather based on constantly expanding theoretical sensitivity and search for best-fitting theoretical codes. On the other hand, I am far from naive reading of Glaser which acusses him of empiricism...
Best wishes,
Adam
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Comment by Muhammad Zubir on February 9, 2010 at 3:35pm
- Are you adopted the Glasserian or Strauss & Cobin GT Method.
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Comment by Glen Gatin on February 6, 2010 at 9:17pm
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Hi Adam,
I recently completed my doctoral dissertation using classic grounded theory method to investigate distance learning.
I've been reading and reflecting on the role of abductive reasoning in GT. One article was very useful was a chapter in the Sage Handbook of Grounded Theory. Reichertz, J. (2007). Abduction the logic of discovery of grounded theory. In The SAGE Handbook of Grounded Theory (pp. 214-229). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.
The chapter is also available from FQS at
Reichertz, J. (2010). Abduction: The logic of discovery of grounded theory. Forum Qualitative Socialforschung/Forum Qualtiative Social Research, 11(1), Article 13.http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1412/2902
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Comment by Dr. Olukoya Ogen on February 3, 2010 at 9:11pm - Hello Adam and congratulations on the succesful completion of your PhD. I am a historian with a special bias for prosopographical and biographical studies. I would be interested in your methodological chapter and the grounded theory approach. I would be grateful if could share your thought with me. Regards, Koya.
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Comment by Jane Mills on January 25, 2010 at 9:57pm -
Hi Adam
Congratulations on your completion. We have a grounded theory group you might be interested to join. Would like to hear more about how biographical method and grounded theory methods intersected and influenced each other. Best regards Jane
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Comment by Adam Mrozowicki on October 20, 2009 at 3:27pm
- Hi Pratyush,thank you for your interest. You can write me on my private email (mrozowicki@gmail.com), so I could send you my methodological chapter. It could give you an idea how did I use grounded theory approach (I was not really an orthodox grounded theorist :).Best wishes,Adam
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Comment by pratyush banerjee on October 20, 2009 at 8:12am - Hello Adam, I am a research fellow of social science in India. I am currently completing my first year of coursework at my university. I have studied grounded theory and also done some work using the method. I want to have an idea about how grounded theory can be used as a method for thesis as well . It will be helpful if you could share with me your experience.
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Comment by Adam Mrozowicki on March 21, 2009 at 4:20pm
- Thank you for your supportive comments! In my case, the methodological 'mixture' of GTM and biographical approach followed directly from an attempt to study the life strategies of workers; a topic which was rarely analysed in postsocialist context and which implied the need to collect biographical data. In practice, I collected biographical narrative interviews and I carried out GTM type of analysis (close to Glaser approach) on this data and some secondary data (e.g. labor statistics). I have quite extensive methodological chapter which I can send to those interested how did it look in practice (just contact me by email - mrozowicki@gmail.com).
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Comment by Margaret Cunningham on March 17, 2009 at 9:37pm
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Hi
Yes congratulations on your PhD. I am currently at the write-up stage of mine which is about dignity as human right practise in the NSW Health system in Australia for people of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. I have been using grounded theory and ethnographic approaches with multicultural health services managers, workers and interpreters in the NSW Health system. I agree with your comments about the importance of developing creative approaches in this kind of research particularly I think when in my case I am working cross-culturally.
Margi
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