Discussion: Methodology
Discuss about the Sociological Analysis Of The Elderly.
In research Life history approach is to focus on the importance of representing an individual’s subjective estimation of experiences and occurrences and giving required information about social experiences (Bertaux & Thompson, 2017). The birth till the death, a person experiences several life events. The moments when a person gets married, have a baby, start working, lose or change jobs, dealing with illness, having divorced and losing friends or family member, passes through experiences, and therefore it impacts the person in emotional and social ways. In this paper the researcher gets the in-depth knowledge of a sixty-eight years old female, covering her essential life events such as wedding, marriage, parenthood and retirement. It highlights the important social factors identified from her life events. This essay presents the life history approach to serves as a mean to understand the subject through the person’s experience, covering important social factors through different stages of life.
The procedure of investigating facts and concepts in sociology is considered as the methodology (Ritchie et al., 2013). It is a process researcher adopt to gives explanation and observation of the social reality of concepts and facts. In this research, the qualitative research method of collecting data has been selected by the researcher (Tesch, 2013). Qualitative data is a scientific method of evaluating data in a non-numeric format (Neuman, 2013). The researcher chooses the qualitative research method as it gives definite answers to the questions that the researcher needs to conduct his research. The present study takes the life history approach to gather answers to the respondent questions that would give an overall picture of her life.
Life history approach is a holistic picture of an individual’s life regarding experiences and learning. The primary purpose of this type of research is to be able to describe the feeling of being that particular person. This specific qualitative research method avoids close-ended questions so it could get the story of the person (Hill & Hurtado, 2017).
Through the method of in-depth interview and semi-structured questions, the research has been carried out. There are fifteen questions covering childhood, high school, adult life, mid-life, old age and adolescence. The major life events covered in the study are wedding, marriage, parenthood and retirement. The factors in term of social context were religion, gender, age, social class, culture, religion, economic class, ethnocentrism and bureaucracy.
Profile of the interviewee
The interviewee is a sixty-eight years old female. Her name is Mrs TawakalituOmolabi, born in Ilorin Kwara, a state in Nigeria. The interviewee resides in the same compound as interviewer. The interviewer met the interviewee through the source of his mother as she is his mother’s friend from his hometown (Nigeria). At present she is a divorcee with three children, two boys and one girl. She was born in March 1950 into a nuclear family of five members. The members of her family consisted of her father, mother, two children including herself. She was named after her grandmother given by her father’s family and surrounded by people who loved her immensely. As a child she liked swimming and catching rabbits with her friends.
Mrs TawakalituOmolabi was born eight years after her parents’ marriage. The interviewee belongs to the Yoruba tribe in the Ilorin Kwara state of Nigeria. Her father and mother are of the same tribe. After completing high school, she failed to clear her ordinary level examination in needed time and unable to get into any university. However, she secured admission to study Bsc (Hons) in accounting with the influence of friends who were pursuing the same course.
She had a good relationship with her family however her father wanted her to take up medicine as her further studies when she started having an unsatisfactory relationship with her father. Although she tried to get into the medical, she did not succeed. Mrs TawakalituOmolabi’s father considered being a doctor as a major pride for the family. Therefore, he was unhappy with her for not getting into the medical school. When she grew up she was offered less freedom from her family, most of her time was devoted to studies. She felt dissatisfied with her life in this phase, with all the restrictions from family and disputes with her father.
She had two significant relations, one with her boss and another with her subordinates. Her boss had an insatiable appetite for money, and he would illegitimately interrupt in her business. The subordinates started to defraud. The subordinates were conspirator against her in the office which later compelled her to resign the job. Since the interviewee feels angry and emotional thinking about this incident, she avoids discussing it.
The interviewee grew up in a religious family where the religion is considered as the base of character. She believes the teachings of her faith made her a better person. Also, the interviewee strongly believes in hard work. She also thought hard work is the answer to success in life. She felt happy helping people achieve their goal. She experiences immense joy when she can help people in any possible way.
Life history
According to her, work ethics are a guide that helps in dealing with members involved in the work. Work ethics allows members free from litigation. The interviewee believes that the future is bright when a worker is compensated for his or her hard work and is anxious about not being rewarded for the hard her work and her entitlement. As per interviewee anxiety comes in fear of results of people’s deeds, in the same way, she is scared since she is unaware whether the creators are happy with her performance or not.
The interviewee wishes to die in a hospital as there would be medical experts always there in the hospital to prevent death. In case they cannot, the patient will die peacefully in hospital. In the end, she liked to share that although she was immensely pampered child of her parents, she never took advantage of their love. The interviewee was happy to share her story. According to the interviewee the research was well conducted and covered all the aspects of her life.
The social factors are facts and experiences that influence an individual’s attitude towards and personality (Hammond, Cheney & Pearsey, 2015).The social factors identified from the above discussion are mentioned below:
Religion: A social aspect that consists of beliefs, actions and institutions which consider the existence of supernatural entities along with powers of action, or impersonal powers or processes maintained for the moral purpose.
Age: The length of time that a person has lived is termed as age.
Gender: In sociology, gender is for the combinations of social characteristics that is associated culturally with the sex difference.
Social class: One of the significant types of social stratification existing in society, along with caste and estates is called social class.
Culture: It is a term named for the literary and symbolic, aspects of human society, including custom, language and convention, by which human behaviour that helps in distinguishing from that of other primates.
Ethnocentrism: The term is described as prejudicial stands between in-groups and out-groups by which beliefs, customs, habits and behaviour are unquestionable and uncritically treated as superior to their social arrangements.
Economic class: It refers to a group of people having the same social, economic and educational standing.
Bureaucracy: It is a particular system of administration. A form of administration, found in organisations pursuing a wide variety of aims, however, earlier it was associated with the rule of government and governmental executives.
The role of social context
It is the social factors that are responsible for shaping an individual’s experience of life events. Family values, morals and ethics raise a person born into a family (Petersen & Wilkinson, 2015). This norms, values and morals vary from culture to culture. Religion is one of the critical social aspects that are considered responsible for shaping one’s perspective of looking at life (Popoveniuc, 2015). Religion is ascribed in nature, and therefore it plays its role from the birth of a person. A child is taught about its religion from the moment it starts gaining concepts (Johnstone, 2015). Age is a factor that is just a number of the years a person lives, however, with the increasing days in life, person go through new experiences and that shape one’s thoughts and pattern of living. The social concept of gender is a feature that helps in distinguishing between male and female. The society gives unequal treatment to both the gender that result in differences in experience (Carter, 2014). A person’s social class is his or her position in society. Due to class stratification, in society, people from different class receive different experiences. Culture is consists of values, morals, habits, behaviour and arts of a group of people. It is simply the ways of life. Culture varies from place to place and therefore plays a significant role in shaping a person’s behaviour pattern. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture is superior to all other culture (Bizumic, 2014). Economic class is a group of people having the same amount of economic status in the society. Bureaucracy is the organisation that is mainly responsible for the administrative department of society (Weber, 2013).
Social conflict theory, a macro-oriented paradigm existing in sociology, founded by the German philosopher Karl Marx states that conflict arises when power and resources are unevenly distributed among groups in the society social conflict. The reasons that can justify the incidents of Mrs TawakalituOmolabi’s life history are the social conflict existing in society. The improper relationships with her boss and her subordinates explain struggle for achieving higher social class, status and politics involved in bureaucracy. The interviewee’s family played a major role in the process of socialising. The socialising process involved educating the interviewee about her culture, values and norms. The socialization has kept an impact on her throughout her life while making each decision. The interviewee also believes in hard work; however she is afraid that people do not get the entitlement they deserve. Since in society the power is distributed unequally, and resources are often seen with the privileged people she fears of not being rewarded for her deed as well. However, the overall picture can be summarised to an example of social class struggle, unequal distribution of resources and power conflict.
Conclusion
The essence of a life history approach has always served excellently when in-depth researches are conducted. This study, representing the life story of sixty years female, shows the momentous events of her life. The way a person evolves through each event and experiences of life can be understood through the questions structured by the interviewer. From the study, it has been found how Mrs TawakalituOmolab has become the person she is now at the age of sixty-eight. The religion she was born into taught her values and morals which made her believe in hard work and honesty. She faced different types of challenges at various stages of her life. In her ordinary level examination, her relation with her father in university and her relationships in her office were hard times for her which can be said due to gender, social class inequality and bureaucracy. In the end, however, she has been kind to herself and her nature of helping other shows her cultural values. All the events of Mrs TawakalituOmolab life have been analysed in the study, and it shows choosing the life history approach was the only way to understand the person she is today. Since this process gives answers to the questions that provide insightful information about the interviewee, this process helps in studying the macro social factors.
References
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