Download european social survey in bulgaria

NATIONAL RESEARCH PROGRAM “BULGARIAN SOCIETY – PART OF EUROPE”
NATIONAL SCIENCE FUND
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA
Research Program
“EUROPEAN SOCIAL SURVEY IN BULGARIA”
Program Module
“W E L L - B E I N G A N D I D E N T I T Y ”
Team of the Program Module:
1. Prof. Dr. Nikolai Tilkidjiev - head
2. Prof. Dr. Tanya Nedelcheva
3. Prof. Dr. Valentina Zlatanova
4. Dr. Maya Keliyan, Senior Research Fellow
5. Dr. Ekaterina Markova, Research Fellow
All permanently have employed at the Institute of Sociology,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Contents of the Text of the Program Module
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Analysis of the Studies on the Topic
Objectives, hypotheses, approach
Expected results of the work on the module
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1. Analysis of the Studies on the Topic
The social transformations in Central and Eastern Europe over the last 15 years – colossal in scope
and depth – are incomparable in modern history. The changes in post-communist societies have many
aspects and dimensions, the synthetic image of which are well-being and identity.
Well-being is the set of statuses and roles of individuals in the social structure and is
synonymous with one’s place – inherited or achieved – in the various vertical and horizontal
inequalities in terms of labour and economic status, property, income, power, culture and prestige, lifestyle, demographic reproduction, health, etc. This is a unique combined focus of the overall social
position of individuals in a concrete society; it is also the crystallized result of the impact of various
factors, of the inclusion in social networks and relationships, of the potential for change. (Clark, Lipset
2001).
Identity is the set of self-appraisals of individuals with regard to their level of this very wellbeing, their self-definition as belonging to certain communities defined by family, culture, profession,
class or estate, town or village residence, territory, ethnicity, nation and region, continental and global
communities. It represents the internalization of the overall social position in the subjective world of the
individual, the projection of the community onto the level of the individual, which makes the latter a
true member of that community. It is the feeling of a “self” of one’s own, of the “us”, it is the selfconsciousness of difference, awareness of one’s possession of specific qualities perceived through
comparison. Inherited, constructed or determined by the situation, identity is a product of the
interaction of individual with others; it forms the actual behaviour of people; it is a system of notions,
feelings, and strategies for maintaining affiliation; it is a regulator mobilizing and making possible the
changes, adaptation and development of the personality and the community (Huntington 2005: 39-48).
Whereas well-being measures the factual situation of individuals in the social structure and
network of social relations, identity is the individual’s notion, knowledge, and assessment of his/her
belonging to a certain community and their recognition and acceptance by the significant others. (Blau
1974; Tajfel 1984; Turner 1984). Thus well-being and identity are two sides of the same social
processes and mechanisms. That is why well-being” and “identity” are key concepts, synthetic
indicators of the level of prosperity achieved by individuals and society.
Since the beginning of 1990 in our country there has been intensive differentiation of strata
and shifting of social layers; part of this social restructuring has had contradictory, multiplied or
secondary impacts: there has been increased polarization, extensive strata of the population have
grown poor and a small stratum has become richer using power mechanisms or through “shady”
means (Tilkidjiev 2002). Identities – individual and collective - have been transformed; new ones have
been built (Nedelcheva 2004а;2004б). And whereas for more than a decade Bulgarians were one of
the most pessimistic nations in the post-communist world in their assessment of the economic
situation of the country and regarding their household situation (Tilkidjiev, Dimov 2003), (a ranking
confirmed by studies of consumption models regarding the quantity and quality of consumed goods
and services (Keliyan 2004), in the last couple of years there have been ever more frequent
observations of a moderate optimism in assessments of the material well-being and some positive
expectations concerning the forthcoming integration into the European Union. Which trends
predominate and what lies at the basis of these processes? The “horizontal” or “new” inequalities have
grown more important (unlike the classical differences based on “vertical” hierarchy, wealth,
knowledge, or power); also more significant now are some other types of social inequality, detrimental
to people on the labour market, such as inequalities based on gender, age, ethnic affiliation, place of
residence, religion (Kreckel 1992:101,35; Hradil 1987:128). New phenomena and problems have
appeared, which have not yet been discussed by scholars; such are “ghettoization”, segregation and
self-segregation of considerable categories of the population, whose situation has no perspective of
improving in the near future. Authors have used terms such as “ethnicization” of poverty and crime,
“feminization” of poverty and domestic violence (Zlatanova 2004; 2003), “age poverty” and “age subclass” (Mitev 2002), risk categories and marginal categories such as the homeless, beggars,
prostitutes, etc., and “dropping out of school” among Roma children, a trend that sharply decreases
the chances of the latter for a better inclusion in society.
Sociologists are faced with the serious challenge of clarifying the nature and course of such
phenomena, viewed as manifestations of differing levels of well-being and differing identities, and this
not in a separate, “provincial” scope, not only according to Bulgarian criteria and assessments, but at
an extensive European level of comparison. How is it possible to achieve in-depth and comparable
knowledge about these questions?
One of the classical methodological orientations of contemporary social knowledge allows
defining a necessary and sufficient minimum of characteristics and dimensions of the real social
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position and its subjective perception. This is the line of research of a number of social scientists in
formulating the measures of social status (Warner 1941; Duncan 1961; Blau 1974; Treiman,
Ganzeboom 2000). ‘Bunches’ of social indicators have been grouped in order to measure the
essential characteristics of various social statuses, social processes, factors and mechanisms. The
present-day large-scale international programs of social investigations - International Social Survey
Program (ISSP) and the European Social Survey Program (ESS) – are based precisely on this rich
methodological basis of a system of social indicators. A common European System of Social
Indicators (ESSI) is being constructed and constantly improved; it is the system on which the ESS and
ISSP programs are based (Noll 1997). Networks of archives of data from social surveys have also
been created, including the European (CESSDA) and world (IFDO) network (Mochmann 2002). The
social sciences are speedily advancing on the course to standardization of their methodology of
research.
All of these circumstances make the study of well-being and identity in the various European
countries, including Bulgaria, a much more feasible task, one in which international expert experience
and common, comparable indicators can be used. The idea of this research program, in whose
framework the present module is set, the connection with the empirical information obtained by ESS
conducted in Bulgaria, and the inclusion in this European scientific program supports our intentions of
making in-depth analysis of well-being and identity in Bulgarian society, and also of placing this
analysis in a broader European context, in a direct comparison with the well-being and identity in other
European countries. This outlines the importance of this scientific program and of this program module
in the coming years, the time when Bulgaria will be adhering to the European Union, for the adequate
integration into European research traditions as well as the latest trends, and for “occupying a worthy
place in the space of European research”.
2. Objectives, hypotheses, approach
The objective of the module “Well-being and Identity” is to analyze and propose as a topic for
public debate the overall social position and self-definition of Bulgarians in the national and
European context today. This is a comparative survey of the specific-national and general
European dimensions of affiliation of people today to vertical and horizontal inequalities, to the
basic types of social networks and relations – under the conditions of the Euro-integration
processes and globalization.
The information resource for achieving this objective is the abundant representative empirical
information, obtained by means of an integrated, comparable methodology in 23 countries with
the launching of the European Social Survey in Bulgaria, as well as qualitative studies.
Concrete sub-goals and tasks of the module are:
1. Constructing a system of indicators, describing the well-being and identity – the basic statuses
and social networks, a system that will be based on the achievements of European and other
international experts in the field.
2. Adaptation of the questionnaire to the European Social Survey with a special emphasis on wellbeing and identity.
3. Constructing additional blocks of question about well-being and identity after the check-up of
qualitative studies on the field, such as focus groups and group discussions.
4. Constructing a model of study and analysis of vertical and horizontal social inequalities in the
framework of the European Social Survey in Bulgaria.
5. Constructing a model of empirical study of identity in the framework of the European Social Survey
in Bulgaria.
6. Analyzing the potential for change in the social stratification and in the social mobility in Bulgaria
compared with the well-being and changes in other European countries according to data of the
European Social Survey.
7. Establishing, at the national level and in a comparative European aspect, the dimensions of
gender and age inequalities, the inequalities by regions and place of residence, ethnic inequalities,
including multiple inequalities resulting from several coinciding types of inequalities.
8. Studying the connection between well-being and identity in the processes of migration
(respectively emigration and immigration) at the national, regional (Balkans) and European level.
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9. Studying inequalities in terms of well-being in order to obtain knowledge that will serve as a basis
for perfecting social policy.
10. Studying the models of social behaviour and identity – specifically Bulgarian and European
dimensions of the phenomena “Bulgarization and Europeanization”.
11. Presenting for public debate the conclusions of the analysis made in the module – in the form of
scientific debates, seminars, university lectures, works by students, academic and popular
publications and comments in the media, proposals addressed to the central organs and to
politicians.
The basic hypothesis: despite the considerable social-economic lag of Bulgarian society behind the
developed European countries, there are a number of forms of similarity, of convergence in
the interdependence between types and levels of well-being and models of identity in Bulgaria,
which are in a process of accelerated transformation (Europeanization), and are acquiring
supra-national characteristics.
Supplementary hypotheses:
1. There is a reverse correlation between well-being and identity: people with a higher level of wellbeing have a vaguer (de-localized, Europeanized, and globalized, “cosmopolitan”) identity, and,
vice versa, people with lower levels of well-being have a more strongly defined and upheld local
identity (greater attachment to the settlement, region, ethnic group, nationality).
2. The low level of well-being makes identity into a compensatory mechanism that decreases the
personal frustration and assists in the consolidation of the community; the high level of well-being
tends to eliminate social identification.
3. Well-being and identity are in a complex dependence on the social context and the concrete way
of life and style of life.
The approach used in the module “Well-being and Identity” is sociological; in analyzing well-being, we
will base our procedure specifically on the “status approach” developed by W. Warner, O. D.
Duncan, P. Blau, D. Treiman, H. Ganzeboom and others. In analyzing and interpreting identity
we will use above all the “cognitive” approach”, developed by A. Tajfel, J. Turner, M. Cinnirella
and others.
3. Expected results of the work on the module
3.1. Obtaining valuable comparative data, indicators and analyses concerning well-being and identity,
on the basis of which social researchers in our country can do much additional research work.
3.2. Basic trends in the development of Bulgarian society in a comparative European perspective will
be outlined, which would create wide possibilities for further work concerning the available
human and public potential and the directions for formulating the respective social policies.
3.3. The work on the module and the program will accelerate the integration of Bulgarian social
scientists with their European colleagues will intensify the unification and standardization of
the methodology and set of methods of social surveys in a European perspective.
3.4. The information obtained will be useful for preparing young researchers - doctoral students,
graduates, bachelors and masters of science in the field of the social sciences; it will help in
their education and in their first attempts at analysis. One young research associate (born in
1973) has been included in the research team working on the module.
3.5. In a wider applied aspect, the conclusions drawn will be helpful for activating the public debate on
questions of well-being and identity, and making the discussions more rational; this will be
useful for institutions of governance and for the national media.
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