Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data

OBJECTIVES: To consider methods and related evidence for evaluating bias in non-randomised intervention studies. DATA SOURCES: Systematic reviews and methodological papers were identified from a search of electronic databases; handsearches of key medical journals and contact with experts working in the field. New empirical studies were conducted using data from two large randomised clinical trials. METHODS: Three systematic reviews and new empirical investigations were conducted. The reviews considered, in regard to non-randomised studies, (1) the existing evidence of bias, (2) the content of quality assessment tools, (3) the ways that study quality has been assessed and addressed. (4) The empirical investigations were conducted generating non-randomised studies from two large, multicentre randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and selectively resampling trial participants according to allocated treatment, centre and period. RESULTS: In the systematic reviews, eight studies compared results of randomised and non-randomised studies across multiple interventions using meta-epidemiological techniques. A total of 194 tools were identified that could be or had been used to assess non-randomised studies. Sixty tools covered at least five of six pre-specified internal validity domains. Fourteen tools covered three of four core items of particular importance for non-randomised studies. Six tools were thought suitable for use in systematic reviews. Of 511 systematic reviews that included non-randomised studies, only 169 (33%) assessed study quality. Sixty-nine reviews investigated the impact of quality on study results in a quantitative manner. The new empirical studies estimated the bias associated with non-random allocation and found that the bias could lead to consistent over- or underestimations of treatment effects, also the bias increased variation in results for both historical and concurrent controls, owing to haphazard differences in case-mix between groups. The biases were large enough to lead studies falsely to conclude significant findings of benefit or harm. Four strategies for case-mix adjustment were evaluated: none adequately adjusted for bias in historically and concurrently controlled studies. Logistic regression on average increased bias. Propensity score methods performed better, but were not satisfactory in most situations. Detailed investigation revealed that adequate adjustment can only be achieved in the unrealistic situation when selection depends on a single factor. CONCLUSIONS: Results of non-randomised studies sometimes, but not always, differ from results of randomised studies of the same intervention. Non-randomised studies may still give seriously misleading results when treated and control groups appear similar in key prognostic factors. Standard methods of case-mix adjustment do not guarantee removal of bias. Residual confounding may be high even when good prognostic data are available, and in some situations adjusted results may appear more biased than unadjusted results. Although many quality assessment tools exist and have been used for appraising non-randomised studies, most omit key quality domains. Healthcare policies based upon non-randomised studies or systematic reviews of non-randomised studies may need re-evaluation if the uncertainty in the true evidence base was not fully appreciated when policies were made. The inability of case-mix adjustment methods to compensate for selection bias and our inability to identify non-randomised studies that are free of selection bias indicate that non-randomised studies should only be undertaken when RCTs are infeasible or unethical. Recommendations for further research include: applying the resampling methodology in other clinical areas to ascertain whether the biases described are typical; developing or refining existing quality assessment tools for non-randomised studies; investigating how quality assessments of non-randomised studies can be incorporated into reviews and the implications of individual quality features for interpretation of a review's results; examination of the reasons for the apparent failure of case-mix adjustment methods; and further evaluation of the role of the propensity score.

/pdf/evaluating-non-randomised-intervention-studies-2k25cz7x6r.pdf

Evaluating non-randomised intervention studies.

What is Qualitative Interviewing? is an accessible and comprehensive ‘what is’ and ‘how to’ methods book. It is distinctive in emphasizing the importance of good practice in understanding and undertaking qualitative interviews within the framework of a clear philosophical position. Rosalind Edwards and Janet Holland provide clear and succinct explanations of relevant philosophies and theories of how to know about the social world, and a thorough discussion of how to go about researching it using interviews. A series of short chapters explain a range of interview types and practices. Drawing on their own and colleagues’ experiences Edwards and Holland provide real research examples as informative illustrations of qualitative interviewing in practice and the use of creative interview tools. They discuss the use of new technologies as well as tackling enduring issues around asking and listening, and power dynamics in research. Written in a clear and accessible style the book concludes with a useful annotated bibliography of key texts and journals in the field. What is Qualitative Interviewing? provides a vital resource for both new and experienced researchers across the social science disciplines.

What is Qualitative Interviewing

W(h)ither Social Capital

Children, work, and ideology: A cross-cultural comparison of children's understanding of work and the social division of labour

Critical Moments? The Importance of Timing in Young People’s Narratives of

Reading the article by Basil in this edition of the Journal has brought a strange kind of resolution to the struggles that I experienced in undertaking a PhD 20 years ago. The refinement and elaboration of the categories that Basil’s thinking has accomplished in the intervening years cuts through many of the problems we both struggled with in the earlier formulation, which formed a theoretical and methodological basis for my study (Holland 1986). It suddenly seems so clear. And this is an experience which working with Basil could often bring. When you seemed to be engulfed in an intellectual fog Basil would produce a sudden insight which lifted the veil and cast your thinking and understanding into a new perspective. One significant breakthrough came when we abandoned the notion of ‘structures’ of production and symbolic control and adopted the powerful and extensive concept of ‘field’ as suggested by Bourdieu and Boltanski (1978). Our mapping of social space instantaneously became more complex, flexible and intellectually satisfying. Basil’s subsequent use of ‘economic field’ rather than ‘field of production’ also provides a typical supple and subtle refinement. A particularly exhilarating part of the intellectual ride of the thesis came from the attempt to use aspects of Bernstein’s very general theory in a detailed empirical study. To expect to link notions of class position (and class fraction positions) to ideological positioning through statements made on a questionnaire by young people about ‘gender divisions in domestic, economic, political and educational contexts’ (Bernstein 2001) seemed a bizarre task to me at first. But the work of making and taking the interconnecting conceptual and theoretical steps, and finally obtaining results which seemed to indicate that the theory worked, opened my eyes to the power of theory, method and methodology. The 15–20-year gap between the PhD and its recontextualization here also illustrates both the constancy and continuity of the basic theoretical precepts with which Basil worked, and the change and development in his theory and concepts, informed by his receptivity to different theoretical perspectives and positions. These are almost imperceptibly interwoven with his own fundamental ideas. I can also see reflected in the changing terms and transmuting concepts a condensed representation of changing ideas in social theory over the period. But perhaps these changes are more apparent in my own work (Holland et al. 1998).

Then and now: Revisiting old haunts

K E Y W O R D S : biography, diaries, ethics, memory work, visual data, young people I was thinking today about the word memory. This is a memory book right? So I guess I should record my memories so, ‘of my day I remember. . .’ But it’s not, is it? I mean kind of, but I think I’m going to change the way I use this book. I already have a diary, I have a dream book, which is where I write down my dreams, and think about what they mean. So I’m going to use this literally as my ‘memory book’. I can have a beautiful memory of someone or something, or I can have a memory of something bad which I don’t want to think about. I’ll still write what I feel about it. (Entry in memory book, young woman.) A RT I C L E 2 0 1 Q R ‘Thanks for the memory’: memory books as a methodological resource in biographical research Qualitative Research Copyright ©  SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) vol. (): ‒. DOI: . ⁄  R A C H E L T H O M S O N Open University, UK J A N E T H O L L A N D London South Bank University, UK at SAGE Publications on June 17, 2013 qrj.sagepub.com Downloaded from A longitudinal, qualitative study We have been following the young woman quoted through her transition to adulthood since 1997, and this is a quote from her memory book, one of the methodological devices we used in an attempt to place the young people at the core of the construction of their own identity and ‘project of self ’ (Giddens, 1991). The study is a longitudinal, qualitative study1 following a sample of young people drawn from five different sites in the UK: an inner city site; an affluent area in a commuter town; a deprived housing estate in the north-west; an isolated rural village and contrasting communities within a Northern Irish city (Thomson and Holland, 2003). Across the three component studies, the major focus for investigation has shifted from values to adulthood to social capital, but our concern has always been to investigate: agency and the ‘reflexive project of self ’; values and the construction of adult identity; how the social and material environment in which young people grow up acts to shape the values and identities that they adopt; and the impact of globalization on the individual. In the first study, we used questionnaires given to 1800 young people across the five sites, followed by focus groups (56) and individual interviews (54) with volunteers from the questionnaire sample. In the second, we moved into a more dedicated biographical approach to how young people constructed their expected or desired adulthoods. We selected 120 young people across the sites in the first study, and employed a range of methods over a period of two and a half years to investigate their understandings of and strategies for transitions towards adulthood. These included repeat biographical interviews, memory books and lifelines, and it is the memory book that we discuss in this article. The third component study continues the biographical interviews, and we have just completed a fourth round of interviews with the young people. The young people were between 11 and 18 years at the start and are currently 17–24. Origins: from memory work to memory books The idea of using a memory book grew from a number of sources. We were interested in documenting young people’s changing constructions of self over time, and were aware of the limitations of relying exclusively on the interview method. We began the study working with Anthony Giddens’ theoretical model of the reflexive project of the self, in which a biography is reflexively organized in terms of flows of social and psychological information about possible ways of life (Plumridge and Thomson, 2003: 214). Yet we were aware of the need to ground what is primarily a symbolic theoretical account of identity (McNay, 2000) as well as providing spaces for less coherent expressions of self. We wanted both to document young people’s unfolding Qualitative Research 5(2) 202 at SAGE Publications on June 17, 2013 qrj.sagepub.com Downloaded from biographies, but also to find ways of explicating the resources that they draw on in this identity work. Drawing on Foucault’s later work, we have imagined these resources in terms of ‘technologies of the self ’, historically and culturally specific practices through which the ‘individual acts upon himself ’ [sic] (Martin et al., 1988: 19). Although it is possible to access these technologies empirically through the narratives that young people construct within interview situations, we also wanted to explore the potential for a more embodied and visual methodology that young people could engage with outside the interview setting. We knew of the potential of using alternative strategies to disrupt a purely narrative presentation of self, such as the use of photographic albums in oral history and cultural studies (Seabrook, 1991; Walkerdine, 1991); and the use of photographs in autobiographical work with young people (Cohen, 1989; Towers, 1986). We were particularly interested in methods that had been employed in child therapy in which young people were encouraged to compile memory boxes in order to create a resource for the maintenance of a coherent sense of self in the face of parental bereavement, adoption and fostering (Barnardos, 1992; Harper, 1996; Jones, 1985). We hoped that young people would bring to their memory books material they saw as relevant to their current and future identities, and records of their experiences in whatever form they saw as appropriate. In this sense, memory books would be receptacles for memorabilia, materials that did not simply document a young person’s life (in the way that a journal or diary might) but which reflected the resources that they drew on in order to imagine themselves. The notion of a ‘memory’ book was also influenced by our longstanding interest in the theory and practice of memory work, a method developed by the German feminist and scholar, Frigga Haug (1987), and elaborated by psychologists June Crawford and colleagues (Crawford et al., 1992). The method is integral to Haug’s theory of how people become selves and the part they play themselves in that construction. The initial data of the method are written memories that are reappraised collectively to uncover and document how they are produced. The initial memory texts differ from narrative accounts and case histories because they describe what was subjectively significant in this memory produced through engagement with the past. It is expected that what is remembered is remembered because it is perhaps problematic, unfamiliar or in need of review (Crawford et al., 1992). The episodes are remembered because they remain significant and the engagement with the past in the present represents a continuing search for intelligibility. As Crawford et al. point out, memory work is: . . . a method par excellence for exploring the process of the construction of the self and understanding the ways in which emotions, motives, actions, choices, moral judgements, play their part in that construction. It gives insight into the way people appropriate the social world and in so doing transform themselves and it. (Crawford et al., 1992: 41) Thomson and Holland: ‘Thanks for the memory’ 203 at SAGE Publications on June 17, 2013 qrj.sagepub.com Downloaded from In the first study of youth values, as a research team we undertook memory work ourselves, both as a means of facilitating the work of the team, and to develop a critical awareness of our own investment in the arena of the research – childhood. We wanted to be aware of both our adult and child selves and their relation to the area of study, and to locate, both socially and historically, the accounts we produced in response to trigger words relevant to the study. We thought that, by evoking our own memories of being the age of those we were researching, we would develop some insight into processes of social change and continuity, as well as facilitating a child-centred approach in the research. Having worked as a memory work group over a period of time, we introduced a new element not suggested in the original method: collecting together our various written memories and analysing them in order to explore the kinds of identities that were implicit within them. To our surprise (and in some cases horror), we found that the identities implicit in these memories were often at odds with the kinds of identities that we would have presented more self-consciously in a narrative of self. For example, where we might have felt comfortable presenting a narrative identity of an agentic rebel, the memory work material reflected a more passive and victimized self. This alerted us to the way that the practice demanded by the memory work method (of describing a detailed situation in relatively contemporaneous terms) facilitated the expression of a ‘different voice’ compared with approaches based on the solicitation of retrospective biographical narratives. We drew on memory work in a range of ways in the Youth Values study (Thomson et al., 2003a). In the memory books we hoped that asking young people to document themselves through the collection of memorable material, away from the demands of the direct interview situation (more or less in privacy, engaging in a different mode of time) might facilitate the production of different and complementary expressions/constructions of self. Developing the method: experiments and pilots Our plan was to use the memory books as a basis for the second of three interviews, nine months to a year apart. The first stage in developing the method involved attempting to create our own memory books. This helped us to gain a realistic expectation of what young people might produce, to think through how the second round interview might best capture these ‘projects’ and to gain insight into the ethical issues involved. Working with a blank notebook, each member of

biographical research 'Thanks for the memory': memory books as a methodological resource in

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