Continuities and Discontinuities. A Methodological Reflection on Sociological Analyses of Time in Multigenerational Family Interviews

Abstract

Based on sociological analyses of "time" using biographical approaches in family interviews with three generations, I primarily investigate two questions using a case study from the own research in this article. First, I show how information about central aspects of the research issue—namely the reproduction of status in families—can be provided by the heuristic consideration of temporal dimensions. Second, it is traced how familial references to time are negotiated and in the first place established by the participants in the interview. Finally, I discuss the specific opportunities and limits of sociological analysis of time, using family interviews, compared with other kinds of data collection (qualitative verbal and non-verbal data), especially but not exclusively in a biographical research context.