Life Course Designs in Sociological Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

Students in the social sciences in general, and in sociology in particular, are invited to take part in a course that gives a general introduction to, and a broad overview over specific methodological approaches in studies with a life course design. The use of this design is widespread in the social sciences and a variety of methodological approaches and methods techniques are employed. A wider aim of this course is to highlight the importance of taking the historical contexts into consideration when studying social life in the processual ways invited by a life course perspective.

Both quantitative and qualitative approaches may be used to study the biography-history dynamic, and some use elaborate mixed methods techniques. Qualitative data can include biographical interviews and other forms of personal documents as well as focus groups. Some designs demand longitudinal data, for instance panels or time series. On the quantitative side register data in the Scandinavian countries are available for researchers to do longitudinal analyses of various kinds. Time series data may also be available in this country and elsewhere for comparative purposes. A number of different analyses of both quant and qual material have been carried out in life course designs and mixed methods approaches have become more popular. The course will give overviews of these and on the fourth day parallel group sessions will discuss specific methods issues in participants´ papers. Professors with qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods experiences, will have a brief introduction each before the parallel groups. All lecturers will participate in these.

Upon successful completion of this course the participants should be able to:

• Take historical context into consideration when studying social life in the processual ways invited by a life course perspective.
• Understand how different methodological approaches and data sources may be used to study the biography-history dynamic and the advantages of different approaches.
• Discuss their research problems in relation to the historical context of their data.
• Give an overview of literature relevant for the specific life course design in their thesis.
• Discuss the literature in relation to their research problems.
• Explain their chosen life course designs and methods with reference to the data and research questions.

Partial course yields 3 ECTS points (participation, discussions and presentation)

The full course yields 10 ECTS (participation, discussions, presentation and paper)