Conceptional Considerations and an Empirical Approach to Research on Processes of Individualization

1.

Introduction

2.

Conceptional Considerations on the Individualization Thesis

2.1

The macro-sociological starting point of the individualization discourse

2.2

The decoupling of subject and structure? "Plural individualization" and "semantic individualization"

2.2.1

Plural individualization

2.2.2

Semantic individualization

2.3

The analysis of socio-structural change at the meso- and the micro-level: "institutional individualization" and "personal individualization"

2.3.1

Institutional individualization

2.3.2

Personal individualization

2.4

On the relationship between institutions and actors

2.5

On the relationship between "objective" events and "subjective" interpretations

2.6

Action and general non-situational types of action logic

3.

Empirical Research Strategies

3.1

Sampling

3.1.1

An example out of occupational socialization research

3.1.2

Sampling design for the study of the individualization thesis

3.2

Creating types of biographical action logic

3.2.1

Types of action logic related to occupational biographies of qualified young employees

3.2.2

Stabilizing types of biographical action logic

3.2.3

Connecting biographical actors to their action contexts

3.2.4

Continuity and change in different types of action logic

3.3

Individualized biographical action modes

3.4

Quantifying types of action logic

3.4.1

On the integration of actions and their translation into types of action logic

3.4.2

On the distinction, in practical research, between types of action logic related to specific situations and those transcending situations

3.4.3

The analysis of social change using types of action logic transcending situations

4.

Summary and Outlook

Notes

References

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1.

Introduction

Individualization is generally understood as a process in which fundamental social change took place in a transition from a traditional stratified to a modern society and which until today has continued to be accompanied by processes of modernization. Until now different thrusts of individualization have been identified (JUNGE 1996).¹⁾ The last one took place in the post-WW II-Germany of the 1960s and after and has been a topic of discussion since the 1980s (BECK 1994, p.48). It started from a mixture of different socio-structural developments: a continuous economic upturn led to a rise in the average income in the 1950s and 1960s (BECK 1986²⁾: "elevator effect", p.124), the general expansion of the welfare state covered more and more groups which had been excluded (LEISERING 1997, p.157) and ever larger shares of the population remained longer in the educational system.³⁾ Finally, a semantics of individualization was established spreading such terms as self-realization, self-control, self-responsibility and self-management [1].

Characteristic of the German debate is the "logic of liberating individuality on the basis of successful institutionalization" (WOHLRAB-SAHR 1997, p.25; KOHLI 1985). Individualization is considered rather as an intensifying relationship between institutional dependency and opportunities of individual choice. In this sense, especially the expansion of the welfare state is associated with processes of individualization (LEISERING 1997; WOHLRAB-SAHR 1997). As a whole, a positive outlook is prevalent in public discourse: the possibility of individual choice through new institutional arrangements even if the negative variant (poverty cycles and the failure of individualization at the actor level) is often considered as well (BECK 1986, pp.143ff.). [2]

In contrast, the discourse in the United States had largely negative connotations. In the context of comparatively less institutional security and a traditionally strong emphasis on individual performance, the label individualism is discussed largely as detrimental to community, undermining solidarity and as egotistical behavior (see WOHLRAB-SAHR 1997 for a cursory overview). Especially the communitarianism debate on new forms of community or the return to old ones stands for the negative connotations of a progressive individualism in the American debate. [3]

In contrast to the USA, there are fewer central questions dealing with community and the means of achieving social bonding in the German debate. Rather, it is about the reproduction of social inequality, on the one hand, and the proliferation and destandardization of life course patterns (foremost of employment and of partnerships), on the other. In this context, the question is addressed as to whether the thrust of individualization in post-WW II-Germany represents socio-structural or purely cultural change, i.e. change taking place at the interpretation level only, but not leading to the elimination of traditional social inequality structures. [4]

Traditional macro-sociological research (e.g. socio-structural analysis, inequality research, employment research) for a long time assumed that by using specific structural indicators, such as educational attainment, employment status, etc., life styles and patterns of normative attitudes could be adequately determined, since a far-reaching correspondence between social position and orientation patterns was thought to exist (ESSER 2000, p.139). Precisely this relationship is challenged by the individualization thesis, making new research efforts beyond traditional socio-structural analysis necessary. If it is to be ascertained to what extent socio-structural change is connected to changes in meaningful action modes of members of society, to changes in formal and institutional action contexts or to an economic upturn, then the dominant institutional and social structural perspective has to be extended to the micro-level to include respective actors. Only then will differentiated analyses of individualization processes be possible. This concerns, for example, the questions to what extent individualization processes in different social sub-systems (e.g. economy, family, leisure time) assert themselves in different ways, whether individualization is expressed exactly at those lines of entanglement between the different sub-systems or to what extent effects related to region, class, milieu, gender, occupation, and other effects can be observed. [5]

Accordingly, the central empirical-conceptional question of this contribution is: How can individualization be measured and operationalized at the actor level? [6]

To complement the theoretical perspective with a separate micro-level of individualization demands a change in the empirical research approach. An example from life course research shows how the relationship between institutional arrangements, consequences of actions and their meanings can be analyzed with the assistance of a typology of different kinds of action and structuration logic⁴⁾. As will be shown, this analytical approach was based on qualitative and quantitative data sources. Moreover, the combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches has proven to be useful to ensure that the typology is substantively representative in an optimal way. If, finally, the aim is to examine questions in connection with the individualization thesis, it will be helpful to use the typology constructed on the basis of qualitative research as a standardized instrument. Such questions would be, for example, to what extent different kinds of biographical action and traditional social structural indicators are related to one another, how the manner in which individuals act is influenced by institutional change, or if a pattern of action should be compared intergenerationally. [7]

Clarification of a few concepts in the of the contribution shall help sort out the multiple uses of the term individualization. Main difficulties arising from certain views and usages of the individualization thesis refer to the relationship between objective events and subjective interpretation, on the one hand, and between social structure/culture and institutions and actors, on the other. The application of assumptions which cannot be empirically verified concerning the relationship between objective events and subjective interpretations and the relationship between socio-structural changes, institutions and kinds of individual action have been criticized in the discourse on individualization. It calls for the broadening of the theoretical perspective in research to include the actor so that the individualization thesis can be applied to the practical actions of members of society. [8]

On the basis of these conceptual considerations, the second Section of the empirical part continues with an example from life course research. It will be shown how the thesis of a new "societalization mode" at the actor level can be investigated by using qualitative and quantitative data. At the time of selecting the qualitative sample for this analysis, using standardized quantitative data, it can be determined whether certain seemingly theoretically relevant (structural) features and subjective interpretation patterns are related to one another. Thus the substantive representativeness of selected features of a sampling of qualitative data can be made optimal (Section 3.1). Furthermore, qualitative and quantitative data can be related to each other systematically in order to create a typology of different kinds of biographical action logic among young adults (Section 3.2). By constructing types of action logic (i.e. linking an analysis of interpretation patterns and resulting actions), specific attributes of the individualization thesis can be understood (Section 3.3). For example, the lack of clarity in regard to resulting actions (particular action results cannot be inferred from individualization) or the influence of action contexts. Lastly, for the standardization of qualitatively derived typologies, it is also an advantage if qualitative and quantitative data can be referred to (Section 3.4). The contribution ends with a summary of the work presented and an outlook for research done in this area. [9]

2.

Conceptional Considerations on the "Individualization Thesis"

Many difficulties in connection with the discourse on individualization can be attributed to differences in how central sociological problems are conceptionalized . On the one hand, this concerns the question of the relationship between actor and structure or, more precisely, between individuals, institutions and social structure. On the other hand, the question of the relationship between social structure and semantics or, on the level of the individual, between resulting actions and subjective interpretations. [10]

The following distinction between three analytical levels (macro-, meso- and micro-levels) as well as the differentiation between objective and subjective data or subjects of study, respectively, shall serve as an application of heuristics to the diverse interwoven relationships between various data and levels of cognition (see Table 1).

Table 1: Heuristic for the analysis of processes of social change⁵⁾ [11]

At the macro-level, one can differentiate between objective social structures and generally valid interpretation patterns or social semantics. In this manner, the social structure becomes visible in accumulated action results as expressed, for instance, in divorce, unemployment or fertility rates. On the other hand, the subjective side finds expression in normative models, notions of normality or common interpretation patterns with regard to employment, family, partnerships or gender-specific roles. At the meso-level, different aspects must be considered. From an objective perspective, formal institutions are understood in terms of laws and formalized regulations, from a subjective perspective, as specific institutional or organizational meanings. Finally, at the micro-level, one finds the objective action results on the one hand and, the individual's subjective interpretations, orientations and ascriptions of meaning on the other. [12]

Depending on the level that individualization processes are taking place at, which interactions, relationships or mixtures of levels are implicitly assumed or explicitly studied, different understandings result of how the individualization thesis is to be interpreted (for instance, in terms of pluralization, isolation, subjectivism, ideology, an increase in options). Since preliminary assumptions are not often made a topic of discussion, the arguments in the discourse occasionally seem to run at cross-purposes.⁶⁾ [13]

However, the terminological and conceptual differences are not accidental. Rather, they can be traced back to certain sociological research traditions of post-WW II-Germany that find expression, above all, in a different empirical approach to the research question: as in the basic difference between a quantitative socio-structural analysis (MAYER 1989) and biography research based on relatively few cases (e.g. FISCHER-ROSENTHAL & ALHEIT 1995, DIEZINGER 1991). [14]

Referring back to BECK's individualization thesis (1992), the following elaboration will be limited to selected central problems which are continuously addressed in the discourse on individualization and are largely responsible for discussions which are not always very productive. In addition, it will be clarified which thematic level the individualization thesis refers to in the author's opinion: namely to a changed social reproduction mode or, in BECK's words, a new "societalization mode" (BECK 1992, p.127). How that is to be understood, will be expanded on first. This will be followed by an elaboration on how to empirically ground the hypotheses at the micro-level of the individual actor. [15]

2.1

The macro-sociological starting point of the individualization discourse

A few problems in the discourse of individualization processes stem from the formulation of the individualization thesis and the strategy used to provide for its empirical foundation. For the time being, however, we should remember BECK's definition of an "ahistorical model of individualization" (1992, pp.128f.). With this concept, he would like to specify a "new societalization mode" (BECK 1992, p.127). He assumes that three main moments of individualization have to be differentiated: liberation, destabilization and reintegration:

• "Liberation" refers to the phenomenon of being freed from historically predetermined social forms/structures and social interrelationships in the sense of traditional relationships of domination and provision ("dimension of liberation"). Here one could, for instance, consider the nuclear family and social class structures.

• The "processes of destabilization" refer to the loss of traditionally determined certainties that go hand in hand with liberation in regard to knowing what choices are to be made and actions to be taken and in regard to being guided by beliefs and dominant norms ("dimension of disenchantment"). Such certainties are lost with the erosion of ideas about what is normal in one's life course, the family, employment or gender-specific division of labor.

• With the third dimension (dimension of "control" or "reintegration") new forms of social integration are considered. On the one hand, the constraints of the labor market and the compulsory nature of subsistence by consumption are targeted. On the other, this concept includes the increasing dependency on secondary institutions (such as the labor market, welfare state) as well as institutional interventions and stipulations (e.g. in state regulation for the length of time dedicated to education and for ways of getting to educational institutions, for childcare facilities or insurance provision in partnerships). [16]

Additionally, BECK distinguishes at each level between an objective life situation and a subjective consciousness or identity. This further differentiation also has consequences for his argumentation. In Risk Society (1992), he dedicated the concept exclusively to the objective dimension, while questions concerning consciousness and identity were largely left out⁷⁾. [17]

The difficulty arises to infer, without any trouble, individual patterns of interpretation from objective life situations (institutional regulations, social structure, normative rules). At least the proof of a relevant relationship would have to be empirically provided. However, BECK relates the relationship between the macro- and the micro-level to a unidirectional strategy of explanation in accordance with his logic of separation between objective and subjective dimensions of individualization. Assuming changes in social structure (e.g. rising divorce rates, prolonged periods of time for entering the labor market) and generally accessible semantics considered to be generally valid (e.g. interpretation patterns of self-control, self-responsibility or self-management), specific demand structures are derived for the subject:

"In the individualized society, the individual must therefore learn, on pain of permanent disadvantage, to conceive of himself or herself as the center of action, as the planning office with respect to his/her own biography, abilities, orientations, relationships and so on. [...] What is demanded is a vigorous model of action in everyday life, which puts the ego at its center, allots and opens up opportunities for action to it, and permits it in this manner to work through the emerging possibilities of decision and arrangement with respect to one's own biography in a meaningful way. Beneath the superficial intellectual shadow-boxing, this means that in order for one to survive, an ego-centered world view must be developed, which turns the relation of ego and world on its head, so to speak, conceiving of and making them useful for the purpose of shaping an individual biography. [...] The institutional conditions that determine individuals are no longer just events and conditions that happen to them, but also consequences of the decisions they themselves have made, which they must view and treat as such" (BECK 1992, pp.135f.). [18]

Since individualization has been conceptualized as a structural process of change that, ultimately, no member of society can escape⁸⁾, evidence and the specification of the postulated relationship between structural change and individual change need not be proven or specified for the time being⁹⁾. Deviations from assumed patterns of normality or average forms of behavior which have been determined for individual special groups or pioneers can, therefore, serve as indicators of the postulated social change. [19]

A further difficulty follows from the strategy to support the individualization thesis with data on social structures (BECK 1992). Untested assumptions on the relationship between institutional and individual changes, especially on changes in individual ascriptions of meaning and institutional assignments of importance must then be used as a basis. The aspect of how the meso- and micro-levels are related to one another must be empirically verified as well. This is just as important as the influence of the different dimensions on the main changes in society at the macro-level (considering all difficulties which such statements on general developments pose). [20]

By limiting oneself to the macro- and meso-levels as well as to the objective dimension of individualization, the micro-level and the subjective dimension of individualization remain theoretically or conceptually underexposed and, therefore, call forth criticism. [21]

2.2

Uncoupling of subject and structure? "Multiple individualization" and "semantic individualization"

Criticism of the thesis that in post-WW II-Germany individualization regained momentum frequently does not overcome its conceptional weaknesses. If the individualization thesis is refused at the same empirical level that already proved inadequate to confirm it, then cognitive progress is threatened. Hereafter, the terms multiple individualization and semantic individualization will be used to designate these problem areas. [22]
 

2.2.1 Multiple individualization

Particularly in the context of a development-oriented analysis of social structures (or quantitative research on biographies, families and employment), the pluralization or diversification of biographies (i.e. the development of partnerships and work relations) can be observed, and this observation is enlisted to make individualization processes more plausible. The lack of diversified biographies is seen as an indication that individualization processes must be refuted (see MAYER & BLOSSFELD 1990, p.313). As a rule, pluralization, in this context, signifies no more than a multiplication of observable feature combinations or development patterns (see HUININK & WAGNER's definition, 1998, p.88). If pluralization, in this sense, is to verify the individualization thesis, then it must be based on the other thesis that pluralization is directly connected to individualization processes (multiple individualization). Only then can individualization processes be directly inferred from observable pluralization. [23]

If, however, individualization is not characterized by the result of actions, but by a specific kind of classification (e.g. WOHLRAB-SAHR 1997)¹⁰⁾, this form of operationalization fails, since the second essential component—the level of interpretation—, which would qualify pluralization as individualization, is missing. The same data could be linked to different interpretations, and a decision on which interpretation is more plausible could not be made. To be able to answer the question to what extent discontinuous employment relations result from individual decisions or must be attributed to general globalization processes that descend upon individual employees, the results of actions and attributions of meaning must be analyzed in the context of what constitutes them. [24]
 

2.2.2 Semantic individualization

If rapid changes at the level of observable action fail to materialize, this is seen as evidence that the individualization thesis is wrong. It is then criticized as being an individualization ideology, since practical action and social inequality patterns did not really change (e.g. KOPPETSCH & MAIER 1998). Other authors speak of "wishful thinking" or of changes in the way a certain social class describes itself (which is argued by FRIEDRICHS 1998, p.7, and MAYER 1991, p.683). Consequently, individualization can only be interpreted as semantic individualization. [25]

Separating actions and their meaning in this way does not take into account that actions are constituted by their meaning. If meaning changes, actions are no longer the same¹¹⁾. For actions have no definite objective identity, but obtain this identity in that an actor or observer is ascribed to them (DILTHEY 1989, as early as 1959, p.51). However, social change is not only expressed in terms of observable objective actions or new interpretation patterns, but also through different kinds of logic of actions, i.e. the way in which actions are generated. [26]

If, for instance, an unchanged division of labor is realized in a partnership in spite of changed interpretation patterns, it can be less and less accounted for today in terms of traditional gender roles. New negotiation processes (beyond traditional assumptions) are required, making use of new justifications (such as institutional conditions, differences of income, personal preferences). In this manner, alternative division-of-labor patterns are conceivable which were previously excluded because of what partners considered to be normal in their division of labor and because of the nature of men and women.¹²⁾ [27]

In the case of multiple individualization, observed pluralization, diversification and biographies no longer leading back to formal structural indicators are understood to signify that structural influences are retreating in favor of autonomous individual decisions. They would constitute themselves beyond existing social structures, for the traditional correspondence between the interpretation of meanings and structural premises would break down (e.g. ESSER 2000, p.139). In the same sense, there doesn't seem to be a connection between individual biographical meanings and structural influences in the case of semantic individualization. Structural inequalities reproduce themselves "behind the back" of actors—unnoticed and uninfluenced by meanings ascribed to them (see WOHLRAB-SAHR 1992). [28]

Hence, both concepts bypass the individualization thesis—in the sense given to them by BECK when he determines a connection between increasing dependency on institutions and the need to create one's own circumstances or "the contradictory double face of institutionally dependent individual situations" (BECK 1992, p.130).¹³⁾ [29]

On the one hand, members of society are becoming more dependent on provision and certificates of the educational system, the distribution mechanisms of the labor market and welfare state benefits. On the other hand, these institutions generate new decision-making pressures and opportunities, leaving it up to the individual to take action or not to take action. [30]

That can be the decision in favor of a certain kind of school, the decision to finish high school, have a family, get divorced or start an academic career in spite of impending university reforms. Or to do none of all this. Simultaneously, structural premises can be recombined or organized more thoroughly, previously separated factors can be mixed or reassessed, the unusual can be joined to the normal. However, this does not mean that anything goes or that all normative premises are eliminated, thus leaving the individual behind in a space without structures (see BURKART 1997, p.271). Rather—according to the individualization thesis as understood here—the institutional impact on members of society has changed and so has the individual logic of taking action. The exciting question, to be answered empirically, then is how these facts connect with the distribution of resources, old and new inequality indicators and actors' actions. [31]

2.3

The analysis of socio-structural change at the meso- and micro-level: institutional and personal individualization

To be able to interpret socio-structural changes at the macro-level in the sense of general social individualization processes, the underlying processes will have to be examined more closely. Since institutional changes and individual action strategies cannot be assumed to relate unambiguously to each other, institutional and personal individualization must be clearly distinguished. [32]
 

2.3.1 Institutional individualization

The well-known arguments of the individualization thesis start from an institutional perspective. Individuals are compelled to accept individualization because of their liberation and disenchantment (e.g. BECK & BECK-GERNSHEIM 1994, pp.14f.). As a result of social change, basic security notions are lost, and each individual must cast about for new forms of social integration. Individualization could then be understood as a kind of institutional determinism or institutional individualization similar to the concepts of SCHIMANK (1985) who infers new identity types from changed social contexts. Institutions set the basic conditions to which all members of society can only respond with individualized ascriptions. [33]

If individualization is to be understood as a process of change for society as a whole, arguments must go beyond the level of objective institutional changes—for instance, in the sense of legislative practices adapted more strongly to individuals. Corresponding to the dictum of the duality of structure (GIDDENS 1984, p.25), it should then be possible to indicate changes in the logic of actions and structuring processes that members of society use to reproduce and modify social institutions in practical ways. This is based on a dynamic and practical understanding of institutions that does not reduce them to the perspective of regulating actions formally by means of legislation and its implementation. Instead, the institutions are traced back to the ways in which individuals act (GIDDENS 1984, p.25; 1988, p.69, p.77). [34]
 

2.3.2 Personal individualization

With regard to the ways in which members of society act, there is another important distinction to be made in the analysis of social individualization processes. Since, without an empirical examination, it cannot be assumed unconditionally that institutional individualization leads to only one particular variant of individual action, it must also be investigated at the micro-level to what extent personal individualization processes can be observed. Accordingly, the question would have to be addressed to what extent individuals see themselves as "a planning office with respect to their own biographies" or develop a

"vigorous model of action in everyday life which puts the ego at its center, allots and opens up opportunities for action to it and permits it, in this manner, to work through emerging possibilities of decision and arrangement with respect to one's own biography in a meaningful way" (BECK 1992, p.136f.).

Finally, a method would have to be found to examine, in a comparison of cohorts, this kind of behavior and its changes. [35]

First, the problem areas addressed—how institutions, actors, social structures and objective events relate to subjective interpretations—will be examined more closely. On this basis, the concept of the logic of actions independent of the situation they occur in will be introduced and, in turn, be the basis for the empirical analyses and conceptional considerations to follow. [36]

2.4

How institutions and actors relate to each other¹⁴⁾

Social individualization processes express themselves in a growing dependency on institutions and, simultaneously, the need to organize oneself. In this context, the increasing importance of "secondary institutions" is often pointed out—such as the labor market or the welfare state (BECK 1992, pp.131ff.)—making individualized action possible and forcing it. For example, the expanding welfare state after World War II is supposed to have led to the fact that groups which had previously been excluded from the process of individualization were now included: old people owing to the consolidation of pension plans and health insurance, women owing to the growth of educational opportunities and the group of the poor owing to modern welfare aid (LEISERING 1997, p.157). To what extent changing formal premises, such as social welfare legislation, lead to social individualization processes, cannot, according to the argumentation supported here, be decided on the basis of institutional change alone (in the sense of spreading social welfare legislation), but must be complemented by the actions of individual actors.¹⁵⁾ On the one hand, institutional change can be the expression of changing individual practices which are appreciated and regulated in corresponding laws. On the other hand, legislation may precede a new social practice: e.g. when, for dogmatic legal or political reasons, new regulations are introduced which then have to be integrated into everyday actions and the biographies of members of society. As a rule, both things happen: pioneers or forerunners push the introduction or change of formal regulations which, once they are in place, can be the starting point for new practices. Which new practices result from such formal changes, remains an open question which has to be answered empirically. The same is true when changing or diversified social models (e.g. in public discourse) are used to explain progressing individualization processes. Without relating the idealization that models represent and practical actions of members of society to each other, it remains unclear to what extent models contribute to the structuring of individual actions. [37]

For practical research, this means that it is not sufficient, in an analysis of general social individualization processes, to examine the socio-structural and formal-institutional conditions and results of actions. The analysis of institutional individualization processes must be complemented by the analysis of the logic of individual actions (to be deduced from action and interpretation patterns), so that personal individualization processes can be specified. Socio-structural changes at the macro-level (e.g. growing divorce rates or an increase of irregular employment patterns) result from activities of members of society (micro-level) having to cope with their social contexts (meso-level). Socio-structural feedback effects from the macro- to the micro-level have to be considered, as well, e.g. in the sense of experiences with a tight labor market. To what extent changes at the macro-level can be put down to personal or institutional individualization processes, is an empirical question. [38]

To be able to show empirically a changed reproduction mode of social structures, actors have to be examined and their way of reproducing and changing social structures in dealing with structural premises (e.g. doing gender, doing family, doing social structure). Since substituting individual voluntarism for structural determinism is not the issue, it has to be shown to what extent a reproduction and action logic in the sense of the "duality of structure" (GIDDENS 1984, pp.25ff.; 1988, pp.77ff.) can be represented as a medium and result of actions and how it is connected to specific action conditions and contexts. [39]

What, then, is meant by reproduction and action logic at the micro-level? To answer that question, it is necessary, first of all, to clarify the relation of objective events to subjective interpretations which can be deduced from them. [40]

2.5

How "objective" events and "subjective" interpretations are related to each other

It has been argued here that attempts to support or refute the individualization thesis with data pertaining exclusively to the level of objective events and characteristics¹⁶⁾ or to the level of individual actions and interpretation¹⁷⁾ patterns must fail: since the individualization thesis is based on linking both sides. Attempts to do it, anyway, imply hypotheses about certain connections (e.g. between action/interpretation patterns and events, on the one hand, and their individual ascription, on the other, or between social semantics and individual interpretation patterns) which have to be reviewed before the validity of the individualization thesis can be either confirmed or disproved. [41]

This logic of separating objective and subjective or macro- and micro-levels is not accidental, since the discourse, in this manner, follows the traditional division of labor in German social research. On one side, there is an analysis of social structures, relying on formal indicators (e.g. gender, school certification, employment status) and deriving meaningful actions from distribution factors, instead of focusing research on the significance of actions from the perspective of the actors performing them. This means that statistical relationships between variables or action patterns are examined on the basis of large amounts of data and with the help of structural indicators such as employment status, income, gender, age etc. By reverting to general assumptions about the rational behavior of actors, available to academic researchers through their own experience or specialist literature, the quantitative results are then made plausible. This procedure is successful to the extent that the assumption of stability concerning rational behavior is not jeopardized by social change or the rational behavior of a specific sub-culture is not unknown (KELLE & LÜDEMANN 1995 on the "heuristics of habit in everyday knowledge"). Whenever no certain knowledge about the rationality of the actors is available, further research efforts are necessary focusing on the connections between interpretation patterns and feature combinations or action practices. [42]

On the other side, there is research, informed by interpretation patterns, on attitudes, identities and biographies. It is undoubtedly more suitable for examining the inner perspective of actors, their understanding of social reality and interrelations with different kinds of socio-structural conditions. Conversely, the relevance of actions for the investigated structures of meaning is sometimes lost from view. For instance when, in biographical research, only people's stories, but not other objective material is used to reconstruct biographical processes. Various attempts to overcome this logic of separation by correlating patterns of behavior and patterns of socio-demographic features (e.g. VESTER 1997) have shown that identities or interpretation patterns, as determined in biographical interviews or with standardized instruments, do not always have an unambiguous connection to biographical actions (e.g. BAETHGE, HANTSCHE, PELULL & VOSKAMP 1988, pp.190ff., p.247). The logic in which subjects relate context experiences¹⁸⁾ to their own wishes and eventually bring them down to the level of action is not taken into account. [43]

How, then, does one get from action results and interpretation patterns to a general logic of actions and structures? How can a "new mode of societalization" (BECK 1992, p.127) be analyzed at the individual level? [44]

2.6

Actions and their general logic

What is meant by a general logic of actions? It is the logic that regular actions, action patterns or routines are based on.¹⁹⁾ Action results (including non-action or failure to act) and their interpretations in different contexts and under different conditions can be traced back to a logic of actions. However, one specific logic of actions is never sufficient to predict particular actions. Depending on the action context and conditions related to certain situations, the results vary. [45]

Analyzing actions (and not only identities, wishes, orientation patterns and life plans) and, thus, analyzing observable results is supposed to ensure the connection to structural phenomena at the macro-level. Referring simultaneously to the meaning of actions, the connection between actions and their meaning is to be kept indissoluble. Accordingly, not only action results, but also the logic of actions can only be understood or deduced with reference to individually ascribed meanings. The same action results can be achieved in very different ways, and very different meanings can be ascribed to them. Conversely, different action results can be put down to the same logic. In terms of double hermeneutics (e.g. GIDDENS 1984, p.284), an overall logic of actions is, therefore, a second-degree construction (SCHÜTZ 1980). It is an observer-dependent construction, and a variety of different actions in different situations can be ascribed to it. [46]

Only a comparison of actions at different moments can lead to an overall logic of actions. Only then does it show how changing interpretation patterns or biographical narratives and life courses (especially employment and partnership careers) are entangled with each other. It becomes clear that new events do not only change the present and future, but also interpretations of the past (e.g. when choosing a career, HEINZ, KRÜGER, RETTKE, WACHTVEITL & WITZEL 1987, p.185). [47]

What has to be examined, therefore, are, on the one hand, action contexts or more generally expressed: formal action conditions and, on the other hand, individual interpretations of action conditions. How are they dealt with? What conclusions are drawn? How are they related to one's own ideas? To what extent are individual ideas influenced by action conditions? Relating biographical actions to action contexts helps decide to what extent single actions that might deviate from a general logic of actions cancel that logic or must be interpreted in terms of specific situations only. Clarification is needed, for instance, about whether the decision to change one's job is the result of being obviously underpaid, thus making it a situational response, or whether income is a central criterion for all biographical decisions, in which case a general non-situational logic of actions is expressed. [48]

The research issue is: who can similar ways of dealing with context experiences be grouped together to form a general logic which whole bundles of context-specific action patterns of different people can be related to? (See Table 2.)

Table 2: Example of relations between different kinds of non-situational action logic and individual biographical decisions [49]

In the context of the individualization discourse, there are not only those dangers, explained above, that lead to wrong conclusions about the meaning of actions by referring exclusively to institutional and personal individualization, but also the danger of inferring action results from changed socialization modes or an individual logic of action. If the individualization thesis and, consequently, the thesis of a fundamentally changing socialization practice are correct, the question arises how these changes show in actors' logic of actions. Is it only a question of ascribing actions to oneself or to other factors? Is the core of the question a "vigorous model of action in everyday life" and an "ego-centered world view" (BECK 1992, p.136)? Can entirely new ways of dealing with structural experiences be observed, different from anything previously known? Or is it rather a modification of what we know that is at issue here, whereas, essentially, the logic of actions is not changing? Thus, one no longer devotes oneself to the Christian faith, but chooses any faith that corresponds to one's personal ideas and stays with it.²⁰⁾ [50]

The preceding Section emphasized that a new, individualized logic of actions can only be identified if the results and the meanings of actions are analyzed simultaneously. This possibility to identify a specific individualized action practice is the prerequisite for tracing structural phenomena at the social macro-level back to personal or institutional individualization or to certain entanglements of both levels or to completely different social changes (as, for instance, collective processes, temporary fashions or an economic growth phase). The question arises what concrete empirical research strategies should be employed. How can, on the one hand, an action and structuring logic from the perspective of actors be identified and, on the other hand, how do we ensure that it can be generalized, so that the individualization thesis as a general social process of change is verified.

Table 3: Qualitative and quantitative data and their connection at three levels of analysis [51]

3.

Empirical Research Strategies

In the preceding Section, it was argued that, at the level of data, an integration of action results and meanings was essential for examining individualization processes. Only with reference to an individual logic of actions is it possible to distinguish to what extent socio-structural changes (e.g. increasing divorce rates or de-standardized professional biographies) can be put down to institutional or personal individualization processes or other social changes. Thus, it seems necessary to combine qualitative and quantitative research strategies in different research phases. Quantitative studies alone, based on formal structural indicators (e.g. MAYER 1991, MAYER & BLOSSFELD 1990) that specify pluralization and destandardization processes, say nothing about the underlying interpretation patterns of actors. These, however, can no longer be inferred from a hitherto divided fund of social knowledge, since the individualization thesis, along with the thesis of a new socialization mode, aims at change—and precisely the structural change of this common knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary to give special attention to facts which have previously been taken for granted wherever the connection between action and interpretation patterns is at issue.²¹⁾ [52]

This problem cannot simply be solved with a quantitative strategy correlating formal life course patterns and behavioral issues. Statistical correlation says little about an individual logic of actions generated by protagonists as they deal with biographical contexts. This logic which cannot be deduced from individual action patterns or behavioral patterns alone, but only from their combination over time, would have to be specified first in a qualitative study under the present-day conditions of supposedly changed circumstances. Only then can the attempt be made to transform it into a valid standardized measuring instrument, thus allowing it to be examined in its quantitative significance as well (see Section 2.4 for further reference).²²⁾ [53]

Qualitative case studies—provided they refer to biographies and biographical narratives and not only to the reconstruction of behavioral patterns, value attitudes or life planning—open up possibilities to re-establish the connection between interpretation patterns and action results in people's biographies. It is doubtful, however, if such studies can be generalized where they lean on individual cases, special groups (e.g. pioneers, elites, people excluded from parts of society) and on assumptions of normality derived from theory or the everyday knowledge of academic researchers—instead of contrasting special and normal groups systematically.²³⁾ A systematic selection of qualitative samples is necessary in order to maximize the probability that findings (constructs or typologies) derived from relatively few cases²⁴⁾ (in comparison to quantitative studies) can be generalized and to keep the danger of unobserved heterogeneity as slight as possible. Therefore, when gathering qualitative samples (features: representativity of content, targeted choice of cases, analysis of individual cases), it is advisable to combine them with a quantitative selection logic (features: statistical representativity, random selection or comprehensive survey). If, for instance, features considered to be important, such as formal structural indicators (e.g. gender, social origin, school graduation) or certain life experiences (e.g. divorce, unemployment, drug consumption, abortion), are determined in a standardized (statistical) representative or layered preliminary survey, this information can be used for qualitative sampling. By means of the optimal placing of cases and their deliberate contrasting in the context of features considered to be important by research, the probability of systematic distortions can be clearly minimized, if not eliminated altogether (see KLUGE 2001). [54]

Moreover, standardized and qualitative survey procedures can be combined if employment and partnership developments or entire biographies are to be reconstructed (as is common in life course or biographical research). If a series of qualitative interviews is preceded by a standardized survey having already gathered life course data, these data can be used not only for the selection of cases, but also for specific questioning in talks. Conversely, qualitative interviews can be used to review and correct formal processes. Consequently, the quality of data collected by standardized means can be more efficiently evaluated (see KLUGE 2001). [55]

In the following, an example from life course research will show how the combination of qualitative and quantitative data and methods can be used to examine individualization processes more thoroughly. [56]

In a study of Status Passages to Employment (HEINZ, BOGUN, HELLING, MÖNNICH & WITZEL 1991; HEINZ, WITZEL, KELLE MIERENDORFF & ZINN 1996; KÜHN & ZINN 1998; MÖNNICH & WITZEL 1994), quantitative and qualitative research strategies were systematically related to each other to investigate subjective orientations and typical forms of coping individually with job experiences during the first few years of employment—against the background of socio-structural context requirements. Qualified young employees were selected from two labor market regions with different opportunity structures (Bremen and Munich): they had successfully completed their vocational training in 1989/90 in one of six among the ten most frequently demanded occupations requiring training (bank clerk, office worker, industrial mechanic, car mechanic, retail sales person, hairdresser). In the macro-panel, the same qualified young employees were interviewed four times using standardized questionnaires: at the end of their training (1989, n = 2230), as well as two, five and eight years later (1997. N = 989). Parallel to the first three series of interviews by the macro-panel, the young adults were interviewed in a micro-panel using qualitative, guideline-supported questions. The sample of the first series (n = 194) was systematically reduced in the second series (n = 113). In the third series, 91 people could still be interviewed who, therefore, provided interview material across all three series. [57]

During the time survey was done and evaluated by micro- and macro-panels, the combination of qualitative and quantitative data and strategies proved to be useful at three levels, in particular, which are also relevant for working on the individualization thesis:

• During qualitative sampling, which was to be the basis for research findings that could be generalized (HEINZ et al. 1991, pp.19ff.),

• when developing a typology of subjective orientations and actions related to job biographies during the first few years of employment—the typology of "biographical action modes" (in German: BGM)—systematically relating action results and interpretation patterns to each other (e.g. WITZEL & KÜHN 1999, 2000) and

• when quantifying the qualitative typology of biographical actions using statistical correlations and qualitative types to mutually check and evaluate results, thus permitting statements on the quantitative distribution of types in the macro-panel (see SCHAEPER & WITZEL 2001). [58]

The following will show to what extent this strategy of combining qualitative and quantitative data and methods can also be used to examine the individualization thesis: [59]

First of all, in Section 3.1., the question of what is relevant for sampling will be looked into if general statements about overall social development processes are to be derived from the results. Next, in Section 3.2., the question will be discussed to what extent the longitudinal typology of an action and structuring logic developed in this study in the context of life course research, i.e. the typology of biographical action modes (BGM), can be seen as a strategy to access personal individualization processes empirically and, in Section 3.3., the question will be raised which statements can be derived from BGM with regard to social individualization processes. Finally, in Section 3.4., the issue will be what advantages are involved in the combination of qualitative and quantitative data when a typology, produced by qualitative means, is transformed into a standardized analysis procedure, and what perspectives such a standardized typology opens up for investigating social individualization processes—the relationship between institutional and personal individualization, in particular. [60]

3.1

Sampling

Sampling strategies in qualitative research follow a different kind of logic than in quantitative research where random selection is seen as the best solution (e.g. SCHNELL, HILL & ESSER 1999) to infer a qualifiable totality from samples (statistical representativity). The question in qualitative research is rather whether results can be generalized²⁵⁾ in the sense of a content representation of problems (MERKENS 1997, p.100) or theory-guided representativity (PREIN, KLUGE & KELLE 1994, p.6). In this case, qualitative sampling does not represent the quantitative distribution of features, but a specific problem constellation,²⁶⁾ so that results can be transferred to similar problems in other groups or areas. Therefore, sampling attempts to ensure a great variety of problem constellations by means of features considered to be relevant (see PATTON 1990, p.172; KÜCHLER 1983, p.26) in order to sufficiently understand the typology of effects and their interrelations (see KELLE & KLUGE 1999, pp.46ff.). Theoretical sampling, well-known in qualitative research, follows the same logic (GLASER & STRAUSS 1970): one does not start from a predetermined sampling plan, but research explicitly provides for the theory-guided extension of samples. By adding contrasting cases, areas where the theory can be applied are specified and made safe, i.e. recurrent theory consolidation is driven to the point of theoretical saturation (GLASER & STRAUSS 1967; STRAUSS & CORBIN 1990).²⁷⁾ [61]
 

3.1.1 An example from occupational socialization research

Topic of the research project Status Passages to Employment described above were the subjective orientations and typical attitudes of qualified young employees during the first few years of their employment against the background of basic socio-structural conditions. The project was designed, from the start, to contain a quantitative and a qualitative research element (HEINZ et al. 1996), either of which was useful to the other in all research phases (see Paragraph 57). During qualitative sampling, it was possible to refer to the standardized survey, so as to implement a two-stage sampling procedure. [62]

The project's research design (see HEINZ et al. 1991, p.15ff.) was based on the theoretical assumptions that region-, job- and gender- specific structures have an effect on the beginning of young people's careers, and having successfully completed the first stage—the transition from school to vocational training—was a decisive prerequisite for realizing one's opportunities in the second stage—the transition from vocational training to employment. To be able to take into account different regional labor market conditions, two urban labor markets were chosen on the basis of a comparative regional structure analysis of the training and employment situation (see BAUMEISTER & BOGUN 1991): one with good (Munich) and one with bad labor market conditions (Bremen). Another important preliminary assumption was that the labor market situation reflected specific jobs. For this reason, the sampling distinguished between occupations with high employment risks (car mechanic, hairdresser, retail sales person) and those with low employment risks (bank clerk, office worker, industrial mechanic). Simultaneously, gender was taken into consideration, i.e. typical female occupations (hairdresser, office worker) as well as typical male occupations (industrial mechanic, car mechanic) and typical mixed types (bank clerk, retail sales person). [63]

On the basis of these theory-guided considerations, and applying standardized questionnaires, educational and occupational biographies were examined as well as other formal characteristics—such as finishing school, gender, year of birth, participating in job-oriented measures, the training company's offer to employ the trainee etc. To obtain as many data as possible recording the whole range of experience of vocational trainees in Bremen, in the six selected occupations and one particular age group, a comprehensive survey of all trainees in Bremen going to vocational school on a certain date was carried out; a comparable sampling was done in Munich (see HELLING & MÖNNICH 1991; HEINZ et al. 1991). [64]

Standardized questionnaires can be seen as the first step in qualitative sampling, because standardized surveys obtain people's commitment to participate in qualitative interviews, and these people are then the initial group from which qualitative interview partners are selected. On the basis of recorded characteristics and biographies, the second stage of qualitative sampling ensured the optimal placing of cases along characteristics and individual biographies classified as theoretically relevant. From each occupational group, 30 people were selected according to certain criteria for the first series of interviews, and these 30 people were evenly spread out in the two regions with good and bad labor market prospects. Further indicators varying case selection were: gender, transition to vocational training (direct or not), graduation (from what school level) and a company's statement concerning employment of trainees (yes, no, conditions). Finally, additional cases were selected, showing striking forms of transition or unusual combinations of features, so as to optimize the range of the qualitative typology strived for by confronting as many anomalies as possible (see ZINN 2001a; MÖNNICH & WITZEL 1994, p.266; HEINZ et al. 1991, pp.20ff.). [65]

By means of the (preliminary) quantitative survey, qualitative sampling referring to selected features (gender, kind of schooling, region, occupation, kind of transition at the first threshold etc.) could be varied systematically. To what extent conditions in the two labor market regions and the selected occupations can be transferred to other labor markets or occupations or continue to be valid as the survey progresses, remains to be seen²⁸⁾. The way the sampling was designed, it guaranteed that systematic distortions referring to the structural indicators examined were unlikely. [66]

What, then, does an adequate sampling design for examining the individualization thesis look like? [67]
 

3.1.2 Sampling design for examining the individualization thesis

To examine the individualization thesis systematically, it is necessary, for instance, not to concentrate exclusively on special groups such as the so-called pioneers or forerunners (e.g. BONSS & KESSELRING 1998) if it is intended to examine the entire social range of individualization processes. Rather, such special groups must be integrated in a comparative sampling. Only then can it be decided to what extent potential individualization processes are area-specific processes referring, in different ways, to the employment system, partnership organization or leisure time activities, group-specific developments concerning certain occupations, age groups or social strata, or general social development processes noticeable at all levels in similar ways. This is not meant as a plea for all-embracing surveys, the real issue being to take into account, according to the topic involved, a sufficient number of contrast or control groups, so that special developments can be distinguished from general social development processes and, with regard to changing action requirements, be put into the context of a certain area or group (institutional individualization). [68]

When examining the individualization thesis, the question must be considered, before sampling is done, which phenomena related to individualization processes should be examined. As far as labor market individualization is concerned, the question of theoretically relevant features would have to be addressed and the features varied accordingly. For instance, the question could be investigated to what extent the increase in temporary employment figures is connected to personal individualization processes. Sampling would then have to be structured according to the feature employment status (e.g. with its elements normal employment, temporary employment and unemployment). If the thesis of redefining work were to be examined, the question of voluntary work and housework could also be addressed. [69]

If, however, a survey aims at individualization processes in the area of partnerships—divorce rates could be considered here, implying a gain or loss in the importance of the institution family (see FURSTENBERG 1987) and seen, accordingly, as connected with the processes of being released into freedom and deprived of mystique—sampling would have to be structured according to relationship types, e.g. with the elements steady partnership or marriage and single, which could be combined with the question of having to, or not having to, mind children. Other features assumed to be connected to attitudes and action modes, such as divorce experiences or different types of partnership, could be additional criteria to be examined by means of a standardized questionnaire. Later, they would be available for specific case selection. [70]

If the assumption is that labor market individualization or changes in the area of partnerships are stratum- or milieu-specific phenomena (e.g. FRIEDRICHS 1998, p.7; TREIBEL 1996, p.431), sampling can also make distinctions with the help of a social affiliation indicator (e.g. what professions and qualifications do parents and/or interviewees have). Correspondingly, the thesis of gender-specific differences would have to differentiate between men and women. [71]

If such factors, and similar ones, are to be considered systematically in the (qualitative) survey and systematic distortion of samples by other factors is to be minimized, the combination of qualitative and quantitative procedures in a two-stage sampling design is the obvious course to take.²⁹⁾ In order to limit the effects of unobserved heterogeneity, for instance by means of organization-specific, stratum-specific, regional or some similar field access, random sampling is still the best solution. If it is to be feared that certain, theoretically significant, special groups are under-represented (e.g. single parents, the unemployed), sampling can be layered further to include a sufficient number of people with diverse feature combinations. That is important, because, in a second step, the heterogeneity of quantitative sampling will be referred to in a theory-guided approach. Following a qualitative research logic, as in Theoretical Sampling (GLASER & STRAUSS 1970), cases can then be selected from quantitative samples according to feature combinations seen as theoretically relevant (e.g. social origin, gender, age). In such a design, quantitative sampling defines the limits of problem constellations and their effects which theory-guided case selection and, later, research findings refer to. If certain groups of people were not included in quantitative sampling, they remain excluded from the analysis unless a new way of accessing the field is found.³⁰⁾ [72]

The basic idea of combining qualitative and quantitative research strategies, which are then used in two-stage sampling, can also be applied when the thesis of increasingly discontinuous or fragmented biographies (patchwork biographies), a topic of discussion in the ongoing individualization discourse, is to be examined as an indication of increasing social individualization processes. For that purpose, formal employment biographies would have to be examined in a standardized survey and, in a first quantitative evaluation, be arranged according to types of life course patterns³¹⁾. In a second step, interviewees (an equal number of men and women) would be selected from relevant life course types to do the qualitative analysis, and again, distinctions should be made with regard to other features (see ERZBERGER & KLUGE 2000 and KLUGE 2001). In this manner, the relationship of life course and interpretation patterns could be expressed by combining quantitative and qualitative research strategies. [73]

To what extent interpretation patterns change or the socialization mode remains the same at the individual level, can be examined more appropriately in a panel design than in individual retrospective narratives as they are common in biographical research (see KLUGE 2001). If biographical narratives are told as close in time as possible to the various situations and phases of one's life, their changes can be controlled better than in a single interview. Correspondingly, the parallel implementation of a quantitative and a qualitative panel is recommendable for examining the individualization thesis. When comparing interpretation patterns and types of action at different moments during the survey, general biographical integration modes and situation-specific types of action can be better distinguished from each other. This also applies to the borderline case where a non-situational pattern cannot be observed. Thus, a frequently addressed issue can be examined: whether individualization finds expression in a specific mode (e.g. by listening to one's inner voice and making situation-specific decisions), or a specific mode can no longer be maintained, and people often alternate, instead, between various common modes (e.g. from a traditional pattern to a situational-contextual one, from a rational one to a metaphysical-magical one and back). [74]

At all times, it is the goal of the sampling strategy supported here to avoid systematic distortions or gaps in the selection of certain features considered to be theoretically relevant, so that the range of statements provided is not restricted in an unnecessary and uncontrolled manner, or the thesis of generalizing qualitative results, difficult enough as it is, is not jeopardized from the start. However, examples show that the possibilities of qualitative sampling to control a range of features with many variants are exhausted very quickly. If one were to distinguish between two genders (male, female) and three employment states only (normal employment, temporary employment and unemployment), six fields would have to be filled. If at least ten cases were interviewed for each combination of features, that would already be 60 qualitative interviews. Therefore, it is recommendable—keeping in mind the ideal of best placement—to vary other features within the cells even during the process of selecting cases in order to exclude an accidental lumping together of relevant features (e.g. social origin, age, marital status). Although, in this way, the problem of uncontrolled influences (unobserved heterogeneity) cannot be completely excluded, it can be minimized, and the sampling quality maximized, by means of a systematic sampling plan (see KLUGE 2001). [75]

It has been argued in this Section that a combination of qualitative and quantitative research strategies is indispensable, even when planning the sampling design which serves to examine processes of general social change as postulated by the individualization thesis. Thus, the relevance of, and the possibility to generalize statements (content representativity) derived from qualitative sampling can be optimized. That is particularly important if, furthermore, it is intended to transform a qualitative typology into a standardized instrument and to be tried out on a larger population. [76]

3.2

Creating a typology of different kinds of biographical action logic

How, then, can a typology of integration modes be developed that is suitable for describing personal individualization processes? This will be demonstrated with an example from the study of qualified young employees, mentioned above, the typology of biographical action modes (BGM)³²⁾. Since that typology has not been developed with the intention of examining social individualization processes, certain restrictions will have to be accepted. In particular, that concerns limiting the topic to a certain field—the way qualified young employees having finished their vocational training successfully organize the first few years of their employment—and establishing certain typology dimensions³³⁾. If the individualization thesis is correct, there should, nevertheless, be indications of individualization processes in the life phase being examined and in the primary examination field (first few years of employment). [77]

For the time being, it is the construction logic of the typology that will be emphasized, on the basis of which it should be possible to access personal individualization processes empirically before showing to what extent the typology can be used to describe individualization processes. [78]

The research project, whose sampling strategy has been described in the previous Section, examined qualified young people's transition to the employment system and the course of their careers during the first few years of employment by using qualitative interviews and standardized questionnaires. That made it possible to achieve standardized analyses of how qualified young people's careers and partnerships unfolded, as well as the development of a qualitative longitudinal typology concerning biographical attitudes during the first five years of employment. [79]

The qualitative interview material of three surveys was evaluated by referring back to an axial coding scheme (the so-called ARB-scheme) (see WITZEL & KÜHN 2000). With its help, the material could be initially structured according to biographical events, realized and unrealized actions (realizations). Simultaneously, interests, goals and preferences (aspirations) as well as the evaluation of action results (stocktaking) were assigned to the events they related to; which does not mean that this scheme reflects the actual sequence-of-events logic of biographical decision-making processes. Rather, aspirations can also be assigned to corresponding realizations in retrospect, or other reasons, not reflected at all, can play a crucial part in the decision-making situation. That, however, was not what mattered most. The main task of the ARB-scheme was to structure the qualitative interview material that, as a rule, expressed the compulsion to tell a consistent and well-founded story. The situational logic of individual biographical events could be reconstructed from the interview material structured in this manner. Beyond that, however, a sequential structure of biographical events resulted that contributed to the understanding of situation-specific attitudes and, at the same time, constituted a general, non-situational sequence-of-events logic.³⁴⁾ The systematic comparison of aspirations, realizations and stocktaking measures in an individual case, following the Grounded Theory (GLASER & STRAUSS 1967; STRAUSS & CORBIN 1990), and the comparison of biographical case patterns with one another, led to a limited number of general, non-situational, biographical ways of coping with problems classified as biographical action modes (BGM). [80]
 

3.2.1 Types of biographical action logic among qualified young employees

Interviews with qualified young employees showed quite different organization modes and ways of coping with occupational requirement structures which were classified in six different modes of organizing biographies or BGM (see WITZEL & KÜHN 2000): [81]

At the core of the biographical action modes optimizing opportunities and career involvement, we find career organization. Qualified young employees who organize their biographies according to optimizing opportunities consider it as very important to have a certain amount of scope to act and to organize their work. They strive for different, new challenges in their work, leading to more experience and an improvement of their qualifications, which strengthens their position in the labor market and provides the conditions for professional advancement. They try to acquire many qualifications, one after the other. To develop a wide range of competencies, they do not tie themselves down to certain careers in the company, but keep their options open: as many as possible, and as long as possible. [82]

Qualified young people who keep their career perspectives open differ from those whose biographical actions were assigned to the career involvement mode. The latter, when looking after their career options, commit themselves to existing career structures in their profession or company. Accordingly, they develop concrete ideas about their goals at an early stage. They consider predictable advancement in the framework of predetermined paths to be important. As in the optimizing opportunities mode, they tend to subordinate their private lives to work requirements. However, investments in human capital are not geared to a wide range of options, as they are in the optimizing opportunities mode, but stay close to the requirements and necessities of the career strived for. With the career involvement mode, young employees prefer practice-oriented strategies, closely related to their specific field of work, to qualify themselves. [83]

The biographical action modes personal autonomy and self-employed habitus can be characterized by the autonomy benefits they are connected with. In qualitative sampling, however, they were rarely found. Qualified young employees with the personal autonomy mode, when making biographical decisions, give precedence to personal demands and needs which often conflict with the behavior expected at the actual workplace or in the milieu they come from. They demand that work should not only secure material reproduction, but also be meaningful. To realize their ideas, these young employees accept biographical discontinuities as well as long qualification periods. Difficult compromises are often necessary. As for the self-employed habitus, professional autonomy plays a central role there, as well, but goes hand in hand with the rejection of dependent work. To be "one's own boss" is seen as a chance to earn more and secure one's future. Business success is the main ambition. [84]

Qualified young employees with the biographical action modes company identification and wage worker habitus are characterized by lacking career orientation and reveal a comparatively slight degree of self-initiated career organization. Status arrangement is their central motive for organizing their occupational biography. The wage-worker habitus mode occurs mainly among interviewees in occupational contexts with unfavorable employment opportunities and career structures. The interviewees seek to come to terms with the conditions, mainly strive for occupational continuity and, pointing out in-company requirements, make do with a low level of income and responsibilities that do not leave much scope for action. Work is seen as necessary for material reproduction and as a necessary evil in direct proportion to its financial return. Current income is the central evaluation standard for what one does. Consequently, these qualified young employees are also willing to do jobs no longer in keeping with their qualifications if it raises their income. [85]

Young adults with the biographical action mode identification with company believe they have reached the end of their occupational development possibilities. They consider the company primarily as a sort of home in which they hope to have found a definite and permanent workplace. They offset low income and lacking occupational perspectives with a family atmosphere in the company seen as highly positive and giving them a feeling of security. These young employees try hard to establish themselves and achieve continuity in the occupational status they have reached and show no ambition to change or advance. [86]

The six biographical action modes give an ideal typology of how qualified young employees cope with individual career wishes and existing structural conditions. However, the typology does have some unusual features: [87]

Through the parallel survey done by a standardized and a qualitative panel, qualitative and quantitative data could be related to each other. Thus, standardized data on employment and partnership developments as well as a number of formal data had some influence on qualitative sampling (see previous Section). They could also be used to reconstruct the course of people's lives and important occupational and partnership events during the qualitative interviews. Consequently, the life course data obtained from interviews are less determined by the selective memory of interviewees in the individual interview situation. At the same time, the life course data already available during the interviews could be used to make specific inquiries about events not mentioned. [88]

By combining qualitative and quantitative procedures in the examination of occupational and partnership developments, not only the validity of life courses can be improved. It is much more important that a different research interest is expressed here in comparison to many qualitative case studies which refer predominantly to (biographical) narratives at a certain time. Since personal individualization has been considered as a socialization mode that can be expected to show in different kinds of action and structuring logic of life courses, it is the meaningful action practice of actors that matters here, in line with the typology presented above. [89]

In addition, the panel design made it possible to compare narratives at a certain interview time with statements made at other times (see BÖTTGER 2001 on this aspect). In this manner, contradictions could be pinpointed even during interviews, and changes or consistencies of self-presentation could be observed. [90]

In contrast to cross-sectional studies, it was possible to understand to what extent ideas about one's employment biography were action-relevant during the survey period of time. GEISSLER and OECHSLE (1996) had already made it clear that life course designs and life course planning are not related to each other unambiguously. GEISSLER and OECHSLE consider life course planning to be those plans that become relevant in current biographical decisions, whereas the action relevance of life course designs can vary considerably. Accordingly, the biographical action modes refer to orientations that transform into action during the time of the survey, and not to general behavior patterns or life course designs. [91]

The point here is not only to control an imagined future with regard to its action relevance. Rather, the biographical action modes are aimed at reflexive decision-making processes (reflexive awareness)³⁵⁾ as well as routine practices (practical awareness). A reason for the latter can usually be found, but they do not have to be preceded by reflexive decision-making processes. Thus, the two points can be distinguished analytically: that in the course of a stable biographical organization practice the interpretation patterns fall in line, or conversely, that changed interpretation patterns lead to a new organization practice. What remains open is to what extent individualization becomes effective as a self-reflexive biographical decision-making practice, or at the level of routine practices that individuals get involved in either to prepare for new action contexts or to continue their activities on familiar ground. [92]

Do biographical action modes depend more on individual factors or on the context experience (see Note 18) of qualified young employees? To what extent do young adults with biographical action modes make themselves depend on action contexts or disregard them? How can biographical action modes be interpreted as an indication of individualization processes, and which of them are especially suitable for this purpose? [93]
 

3.2.2 Stabilizing different kinds of biographical action logic

Types of action logic during the first few years of working life are the result of self-socialization on the job, i.e. in the serious situation of gainful employment (HEINZ, KELLE, WITZEL & ZINN 1998) and, as such, differ from socialization processes for the job as they take place at school and during vocational training (HEINZ 1995). Since biographical action modes are the result of structure experiences in (occupational) action contexts, they describe types of situational logic³⁶⁾ as well as action modes that actors use to reproduce and modify existing structures (GIDDENS 1984). Thus, they are also the place where it should be possible to observe changing assignment modes, ways of coping or personal individualization processes. [94]

The qualitative data show that neither do action contexts determine how qualified young employees act, nor are their actions completely independent of structure experiences in specific action contexts. Rather, action contexts and biographical action modes are loosely related to each other. Biographical action modes and contexts must go together or be "viable"³⁷⁾. Three short examples from the retail and banking business can illustrate this: [95]

The retail business is a highly differentiated field according to gender, along horizontal lines³⁸⁾ (areas of specialization) and vertical lines (occupational rank and career perspectives). As a rule, career structures in larger department stores, retail chains or supermarkets are reserved for men.³⁹⁾ That is why qualified young women experience again and again that their efforts to take advantage of career structures in the retail business are in vain. As the interviewee Thea says: "For a woman, it is incredibly difficult to make progress. I've worked hard, I've worked my ass off—but men. They just walked by and ignored me. And it wasn't just me who felt like that." Or they already know from others how slight their career chances within the company are. Thus, Anne said: "I think the company F has 5000 employees ... and I don't know a single woman in that company who has managed to get herself promoted." [96]

Young women come to different conclusions about this fact. Some, like Thea with the biographical action mode wage worker habitus, look for a better-paid job in another work field. She cannot be persuaded to stay even when she is offered a promotion to an assistant manager position she had wanted for a long time. In Thea's estimation, the work situation would not really change (low income, high pressure). Instead, she went to local public transport and became a streetcar driver, with the promise of less pressure and a higher income. [97]

Other women do not see any chances for themselves, either, to link up with career structures in companies. But they draw other conclusions from their occupational experience than women with the wage-worker habitus mode. Women like Anne try to make use of further educational resources and to realize their claim to a better-paid job after all. They keep themselves thoroughly informed about different options with all their advantages and disadvantages, choose the one they think has the best prospects and opportunities, and make efforts to maintain or expand their scope for actions. They stabilize the optimizing opportunities mode accordingly (see Paragraph 82). [98]

It becomes clear why, in the context of the research project, no young retail saleswomen with the career involvement mode could be found: this mode not being compatible with action contexts, since career structures in the retail business are reserved for young retail salesmen. [99]

An example from banking also shows how biographical action modes and action contexts refer to each other. In banking, on-the-job training and the attempt to get higher qualifications are a norm that mainly young male banking clerks find themselves exposed to in the competitive struggle for higher positions. When Heinrich broke off a higher qualification measure that, in addition to his work, would have restricted him too much timewise, he tried to stay in his profession without further qualifications (the wage-worker habitus mode). After changing banks several times, however, and having to compete with others, he failed to realize a lasting professional perspective in the banking business. Instead, he was squeezed out of this specific labor market and changed his job to avoid being unemployed. [100]

These examples showed clearly that qualified young employees react to their context experiences in different ways. They can use the enabling character (GIDDENS 1984) of social structures to make wishes come true in spite of adverse circumstances, or to "do their best" in prevailing conditions, or come to terms with the professional status they have achieved. [101]
 

3.2.3 Linking biographical actors to their action contexts

Biographical action modes are not just loosely connected to their action contexts—with them, qualified young employees bind themselves to contexts in different ways (e.g. gender-specific behavior expectations, the situation in regional and professional labor markets): [102]

The ways in which qualified young employees cope with the optimizing opportunities mode are relatively independent of their action contexts. They use multi-optional strategies to avoid being dependent on certain employers or career positions, but also on their current ideas about jobs. They often see their own wishes and notions as variables, as well. If they are disappointed with one option or their wishes and notions change, they can choose from several other possibilities. [103]

Those young people with the career involvement mode already commit themselves quite strongly to one company or employer. Action strategies vary between "I'll see how far I can get" and a committed "striving for a particular position". Because qualification strategies are closely linked to existing careers, they can advance by learning-on-the-job and, thus, do not depend so much on acquiring formal training qualifications, but it costs them the price of depending more strongly on their employer. In case of a crisis (e.g. bankruptcy), or when the career is "jammed", there is a strong possibility of their uncertified, in-company qualifications being devalued. [104]

With the wage-worker habitus mode, qualified young employees do not depend on particular employers, but they do depend on the opportunities of the regional labor market. They imagine that their relationship to the labor market will remain the same over time. On the one hand, they see their own qualifications as being largely constant (no long-term qualification strategies seem to be necessary). On the other hand, they assume relatively stable labor market conditions which they rationalize with comments like: "If you want to work, you'll find some". [105]

Unlike qualified young employees with the wage-worker habitus mode, those with the company identification mode compensate for unfavorable career prospects or low income with a good company atmosphere. This attitude can be found mainly among young women who do not have to feed a family with their work, who are often anticipating their role as housewives and do not strive for (further) advancement. [106]

Unlike the self-employed habitus mode that makes young adults depend on their own business success in the context of economic evaluation criteria, the personal autonomy mode shows a form of committing oneself according to personal values and needs. Qualified young employees disregard traditional orientation patterns such as status, income or behavior expectations in the milieu they come from. Beyond the well-worn orientation patterns, they can overcome the standards of behavior that prevail in their milieu of origin. On the basis of personal evaluation criteria, even those career developments can be evaluated positively that, from another perspective (e.g. financially), would be considered a social decline (the art of living) [107]

In a working world characterized increasingly by lifelong learning and rapidly changing qualification requirements, with predictable career structures being increasingly swept away, biographical forms of commitment win different kinds of prizes: It is with multi-optional organization strategies in their job biographies that qualified young employees can react most flexibly to changes in the employment system. Consequently, they are the least exposed to the danger of their qualifications being rapidly devalued. Relying on the careers that companies offer and on company-specific qualification strategies does not only produce opportunities, but also dangers if one's qualifications are devalued after switching companies. Finally, those who no longer invest in their human capital, or do so only a little, remain at the mercy of the (regional) labor market situation and are threatened by marginalization. The consequences of an increased orientation according to personal criteria for organizing one's biography can be quite different. The chances of advancement are counterbalanced by the risk of social decline. On the other hand, completely new forms of employment can be found. [108]

It will be shown below to what extent forms of self-commitment that qualified young employees get into are related to changes from one kind of biographical action mode to another. [109]
 

3.2.4 Consistency and change in types of action logic

Once qualified young employees have established a biographical action mode during the first few years of employment, it usually remains stable for the rest of the observation period. In some cases, however, modes which were stabilized early on are called in question again and changed because of occupational events or a different relationship to the employment taken on. [110]

Basically, two variants of mode substitution can be observed. On the one hand, the change is triggered because of different action conditions in a new job, leading either to fundamentally new work experiences and opening up new career perspectives, or closing down such perspectives. On the other hand, changes go back to different subjective demands on employment, leading to a search for career perspectives that are personally meaningful. The change from one biographical action mode to another can be observed mainly among qualified young employees with few formal educational resources. [111]

Thus, the interviewee Kuno, for example, changes from the wage-worker habitus mode to the career involvement mode after giving up his dream job (retail salesman) in favor of employment in a bank. According to the wage-worker habitus mode, he uses the opportunity that changing jobs gives him to optimize the relation of workload to income opening up for him in the expanding Munich labor market due to a regional staff shortage in the banking sector. In the new occupational environment that gives him career perspectives corresponding to his abilities, he develops a biographical behavior in keeping with the career involvement mode. [112]

The opposite is true for Marco, who changes jobs for the same reasons that Kuno did. However, he gets into a commercial work context that—unlike the retail business—blocks further in-company career pathways because of his formally low educational resources (graduation from the Hauptschule). To get on, he would have to invest in further educational resources (graduation from high school, college studies), which he does not feel able to do because of having to provide for his young family. He changes from the career involvement mode to the wage-worker habitus mode. [113]

In both cases, there is a relatively close connection between mode changes and spontaneously changing one's occupational action context. The situation is quite different in another case. [114]

In his choice of a job, Johann orientates himself according to the employment behavior specific to his origins and stabilizes the wage-worker habitus mode in the banking profession. He quickly realizes that working in a bank does not meet his expectations, despite good pay and career perspectives. Instead, he develops the notion that employment "must get you somewhere" personally. Looking for that kind of work, he acquires the intermediate school certificate (Mittlere Reife) and the academic standard required to study at a higher education institution (Fachhochschule). Thus, Johann changed to the personal autonomy mode. [115]

That a change of organization modes can be determined, above all, among young adults with the wage-worker habitus and career involvement modes, and that mainly those with personal autonomy and optimizing opportunities modes disregard limiting context conditions (milieu of origin, company and occupational action conditions)—does not seem to be accidental. Rather, these factors are all connected to forms of self-commitment in biographical action modes and go hand in hand with various kinds of dependence on action conditions in companies and regional labor markets. Qualified young employees with the wage-worker habitus mode react more directly to changes or opportunities in regional labor markets, and those with the career involvement mode depend on in-company career structures. On the other hand, qualified employees with the personal autonomy mode assemble their employment biography according to their own criteria, and those with the optimizing opportunities mode do the same thing with a view to business-wide and inter-regional opportunity structures (see previous Section). [116]

As young adults make different biographical decisions in spite of the same formal educational resources and comparable social origins, it becomes clear that, even where structural and institutional factors have a continuous influence, a certain amount of scope for action remains⁴⁰⁾, which interviewees make use of in various ways and with different consequences for their further job biographies. To what extent can different forms of behavior and self-commitment to occupational contexts and norm