Download Alcoholism among women in biographic perspective

Bogna Bartosz, Edyta Zierkiewicz
Biographical methods used in psychological and educational research on women
in Poland
Biographical methods are not often used by researchers conducting their projects on
women’s issues in pedagogy and psychology in Poland. Also the tradition of research on
women itself in these fields is quite new.
Only in last ten years gender studies started to appear – in Warsaw, Krakow,
Wroclaw. After the collapse of communism associations, fundations, NGOs dedicated to
women’s problems were established. They act jointly thanks to National Women’s
Information Centre (OŚKa), e. i. “non-governmental, non-profit organization which assists
all Polish women-related organizations and initiatives by operating an effective information
system. Its mission is to encourage women's participation in public life, promote awareness
of gender equality and to strengthen the women's community through encouraging
cooperation and networking of women's organizations». (www.oska.org.pl) This Centre coordinates functioning of women’s organizations in Poland not only through publishing
monthly a sort of guidelines about events addressed to women in any region, town and city
but for instance also through carrying out research projects. One of these projects is on
memory of women (especially elderly women who survived the second world war). It is a
huge social and historical research conducted by many researchers in the whole country and
based on usage of biographical methods and on analysis of personal documents (letters,
diaries). This project is in progress.
It is impossible to present an extensive and systematic review of biographical studies
on women in pedagogy and psychology in Poland because not many researchers conducted
projects on such topics and some of them didn’t complete their research studies.
There is one academic centre in education (in Lodz), and few in psychology that
focus on using biographical methods as an essential research method in their studies and in
their theoretical investigating.
In our paper we simply want to introduce the studies on women conducted in late 90.
in Poland in order to give our contribution to developing new methodological tradition in
research on women.
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Psychological and educational biographic research is mainly of explorative
character. It describes the situation of women in Poland during the transformation period.
The analysis of different women’s experiences and problems against the background of their
own biography points at the specific nature of women’s experiences.
In this paper we would like to present the following issues
-
problems and decisions related to the category of biography in the humanistic research
led in Poland;
-
some ways of applying the biographic methods;
-
research perspectives and possibility of applying the biographic method in the
psychological and educational research.
Problems and terminology decisions related to the category of biography in the
humanistic research led in Poland
The category of biography appears often and often in psychological, pedagogical and
sociological research in Poland. There are two trends in approaching biography:
1) Biography as a topic
Such approach complies with the assumption that the individual biography reflects
social events. In the other words, the specific, defined social reality is described in a
unique way referring to the biography of an individual. The biography expressed in such
way becomes more often the topic of the qualitative research.
2) Biography as a method
According to the classical definition the main attribute of the biographic method is
investigation of a specific problem from the point of view of an individual biography.
The biography method refers to the historical dimension of an individual. It assumes that
an individual «becomes» rather than «is» during their own life. Therefore in order to get
known and to understand an individual, it is necessary to reconstruct their own
experiences that create their own history.
The biographical method is treated as a research object and a research method. It
constitutes one of the examples of qualitative methods in the humanistic science. The
biographical method may emphasize subjective reflection as well as an individual approach
to the biography. The autobiographical method is carried out in different versions: e.g.
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method of Shutz, Book metaphor of Mc Adams, Life map of Fowler, Personal myth of S.
Keen. It also may accentuate objective events that happened in the life of an individual
(psychobiographic method in Runyan’s version). Biography as a topic and biography as a
method may appear simultaneously during the research on selected problems.
The biographic research presented in this article is described by the following features:

preferences given to the autobiographic approach and acceptance of the perspective of
an individual who treats its own life history individually and emphasizes the subjective
image of an investigating event;

contextual and historical character of learning (discovering?) and reconstructing the
meaning against the biographic background. Contextual character means event,
subjective experience, sense of historical character refers to the whole life of a subject;
 explorative character of research. Questions asked in the course of research by
psychologists, teachers, sociologists are open (e.g. “What does maternity mean for
young educated Polish women?», “What does old age mean for women in Poland?»,
“What is the self-perception of women – alcoholic?» , etc.);

the purpose of the research is not to verify hypothesis generated by a researcher but to
show the reality in a way it is perceived by the subject. The reality is from the
perspective of the subject who experiences and interprets the real world in their own
individual way.

The biographic research along with cognition and understanding has also a therapeutic
meaning – it broadens our consciousness, helps in making changes and improving the
life quality of the subjects.
Some areas of applying the biographic method in psychology
Biography of both types constitutes a specific new quality in the humanistic
sciences. It also achieves the stronger position in theory and methodology. The number of
its supporters grows among the researchers dealing with the problems typical for events in
Poland in the period of transformation and changes in a wide extend. The biographic
approach enables to reach the specific level of knowledge. Being treated as a basic method
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and not complementary one, the biographic approach is used to explore all areas difficult to
investigate using any other methods (e.g. experimental ones).
The biographic research presented in this work is based on the model of Schutz and
refers to specific problems related to different aspects of women’s behavior and specifically
to Bartosz’s research on the following topics: maternity, homelessness, alcoholism and
freedom experiencing. Such research was made under my seminar hold at Wrocław
University:

Maternity in biographic perspective
Since 1989 we have faced in Poland the decrease in population rate. Since 1995 the
number of deceases has been higher than the number of births. Demographers in Poland
describe the last years as «birth depression». However psychologists emphasise the
possibility of «family crises», and decline of maternity attraction, especially among young
educated women. The most characteristic and symptomatic features of the maternity in the
present days are the following: growth of consensual relationships (not legalized), liberality
in sexual life, cost calculation of having and bringing up children, growth of feministic
feelings, situation of women at job market, especially those who have children, preference
of pro-professional attitudes to pro-family attitudes, etc. These factors impact the attitudes
of young Polish women towards maternity because this problems is strictly connected with
the complex process of economic, social and cultural changes.
Biographic perspective as well as applying of the biographic method enable to
expose the subjective experiences of young women that so far has not been reconstructed in
psychological research lead in Poland. In the biographic research conducted according to
method of F. Schutz in 1995/96 participated 13 married, highly educated women at the age
of 19 –34. The research was made in a few phases: from the first term (three months) of the
first normal pregnancy until the child was at least 6 months old.
The biographic research indicated that young educated women call the »maternity
myth» in question. For them maternity is not a «paradise» although it contains the
psychological development potential for a child as well as for a mother but it becomes
harder for a young woman to discover it. In the present days being a woman becomes in
Poland one (but not the only one) area to create her own identity. It results not only from the
objective conditions but also from subjective experiences of its own biography.
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Women have difficulties to accept their maternity that results from many facts: they
did not accept their image and their new role, being a mother hinders making a career,
forces to change plans, women are afraid of responsibility connected with bringing up a
child. Biographic regularity distinctly appears against this background: being a mother was
interpreted as a source of load, complications, and hindrance. However being a mother from
the perspective of experiences with pregnancy, giving the birth, bringing up a child seems to
give the sense to its own biography. It is perceived as a turning point that directs properly
the life . The biographic approach from the perspective of consequences of being a mother
and not from the perspective of plans and expectations revealed the real sense of maternity.
In the biographic context maternity may become the «opportunity» for a young
woman to develop her identity and personality. It may also cause breaking up of identity.
Maternity in the present days in the biographic perspective is a «difficult» maternity.
Therefore it is necessary to change the attitude towards a counseling for young
women becoming mothers, not only medical guidance but also psychological one.

Woman homelessness in Poland against a background of biographic research
Homelessness is different in each country. It is different in highly developed
countries and in countries of former Soviet Union or Africa. Before the second world war
catholic church and charitable organizations took first of all care of the homeless in Poland.
However after the war till 1989 this problem was treated as non-existing. There were no
state welfare for the homeless. At that time only a few hospices for the homeless governed
by charitable or church organizations existed.
As a result of political system changes that have happened and are still happening in
Poland in 1990 the act of welfare for the homeless was ratified by the government. The
problems of homelessness officially appeared. In 2001 there were officially about 20 000-30
000 of the homeless while unofficial statistic showed the figures of 200 000. About 38 % in
that group make women. People at the age of 25-50 constitute the majority of the homeless,
so they are at the age of their professional activity. The majority of homeless women in
Poland makes women at the age of 18-30. According to sociological and demographic
analysis, the majority of the homeless, notwithstanding the sex, who do not stay in hospices
(but they camp at stations or other places) suffer from alcohol disease. 70 % of the homeless
states that they prefer staying at stations, in staircases, cellars to staying in hospices. The
lack of suitable acts and inconsistency of regulations referring to the homeless health
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service causes that the homeless in Poland are deprived of health service in principal
(doctors and nurses of voluntary service are not taken into account).
In 1996 an interview research was made according to the model of F. Schutz. It
focused on the specific features of homelessness in Poland (Bartosz, Błażej, 1996; Piskorz,
1998). It revealed the complexity of psychological picture of homelessness in Poland after
1990. The results enabled to call in question the stereotypic and unambiguous picture of a
homeless individual as so called «an individual from the dregs of society».
Against the biographical background diverse reasons of homelessness have been
outlined in the group of 65 subjects under research. The reasons were connected not only
with the social and economic situation (growth of unemployment – 20 % in 2002, closing
workers hostels, few places in welfare organisations and in centres for people infected by
HIV, drug addicts, ect.), but also with pathology and diseases (alcoholism, crime in
families), and psychological reasons (conscious choice of different way of life and value
system). Among women the main reasons of homelessness were the following: throwing out
the home because of the pregnancy or illness, violation in family, HIV infection, pathology
in families. We can notice more often a new phenomena: the whole families become
homeless, and the number of the homeless with higher education below 30 grows.
The results of the research made with the biographic method showed that among
feelings, reflections and emotions of the homeless the following feelings prevails: feeling of
loneliness (isolation from others, no family relations, feeling of staying aside, etc)., feeling
of being inferior (worse, worthless) , feeling of shame (the homeless are ashamed of their
images, of the fact they are hungry, dirty, stinking, seek, that they ask for alms, they are
ashamed of themselves, that being educated they are helpless). The homeless do not accept
themselves, they feel left and forgotten by others.
When they were asked about their self-image and self-perception they answered that
they «can not be themselves» in order to survive. According to them the homelessness is a
label and a stamp they are not able to get rid of. There was however a small number of
subjects claiming the homelessness was their conscious choice.
The subjects described the others, i.e. «not homeless» as people on the better side.
They are perceived by the homeless as unjust and egoistic.
There are only some aspects of homelessness problem in Poland. It is worth saying
that there are differences between homelessness of women and men, between the homeless
staying in hospices and those who never were there, between people who have been
homeless for couple of months and those who have lived without home for years.
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Sociologists, psychologists and therapists warn of the threat of “inheritance of
homelessness» by children of homeless parents .
Alcoholism among women in biographic perspective
During the last ten years we have noticed in Poland growth in alcohol consumption
among women (from 3 556 treated in drying-out wards in 1989 to 6 529 in 1995). Among
them the number of young women (at the age of 15-19) and educated women increases. The
number of educated women addicted to alcohol doubles the number of addicted women with
secondary education.
The average woman in Poland addicted to alcohol that decides to start the drying-out
treatment is approximately 40 years old and for 10 years has drunk alcohol habitually. She
lives in a big city, every third woman – alcoholic is lonely, 30 % of drinking women lives
together with the partner – alcoholic.
Drinking women and drinking men in Poland try to commit a suicide, to injure
themselves, and they suffer from heavy neurosis. Five of every ten women who decide on
drying-out treatment keep on not drinking after the first year.
The biographic research made in 2001 in the group of 25 women at the age of 34-45
seems to point at a certain biographic regularity. The women in their childhood and in their
adolescence experienced the feeling typical for depression – the feeling of not being loved
and being deprived of any emotional support. Among their biographic experiences they
mentioned violation, negligence, emotional or sexual abuse, loneliness, abandonment. They
called the attention to problems with self-acceptance and to low self-worth. They reached
for alcohol when they were unable or did not want to be women (problems with woman
identity). However men reached for alcohol when they did not feel men (identification
disturbance - see Facts of Women and Alcohol, 1991).
Applying the biographic methods in education
Before presenting the educational studies I want to mention shortly three projects on
women that can be treated as a sort of broadly viewed context for education. All of them are
classified as an “oral history».
The first one is an attempt of rebuilding or rather creating women’s history
(herstory) because even to the newest history women seem to be refused admittance. The
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book Lipstick on the banner by Ewa Kondratowicz was inspired by her teacher she met
studying on Gender Studies and the Shana Penn’s paper titled “Secret of the State». Both
texts are about women’s roles in Solidarnosc movement from 1981 to 1989. The problem
with these texts is that people acting in politics at that time (men as well as many women)
keep silent about importance of women’s heroism. Both authors stated that Solidarnosc
could not exist without hard work of women, moreover it was built and sustained by women
themselves because men had to stay in shelters or were captured in jails. Men talking about
women’s role in this movement willingly tell about inferior female position, it is about their
assistance in their (male) war or about women as mothers of their children. During the war
state (after 1981) it was helpful for women to work in underground movement to be seen as
too irresponsible and not mature enough by the politicians and police. But after the collapse
of communism the situation didn’t change or even there was an increase of patriarchal
moods among new political power from Solidarnosc. Before and after the collapse women
were not thought to be leaders of the underground movement (although some of them were,
indeed) or partners in the politics for men in changing Poland. There were many
consequences of not “allowing» women to represent themselves in the Parliament and other
political institution, e.g. abortion forbidden. Lipstick on the banner is consisted of 19
interviews given by women whose works were very important for Solidarnosc movement
and now many of them are forgotten. What is surprising are their attitudes to the past and
the present. Many of these women are very disappointed by the situation they are in but they
don’t perceive it in the category of gender. They are invisible, non-existed for the public
(contrarily to their male colleges) but they state they are not discriminated. Only few of
them see the situation clearly but these women are still politically active so they are not so
frustrated or angry as the other interviewed women.
The second study was on ultra-orthodox Jewish women living in Israel. The book
The most difficult is to meet Lilit by Anka Grupińska is a multi-voiced story on everyday
life of religious Jewish women who are especially mothers and wives.
Alike Kondratowicz who needed to learn about other women’s experience during the
period of fight with communism system in order to understand her own life better,
Grupińska investigates Jewish culture since she wants to explore her roots and memory of
her family. She presents the boarder picture of Jewish women lives based on the interviews
with over a hundred of women. This picture is ideal on one hand – families are full and
happy, all members know their places and roles, they live quite and safe lives, there are
almost no divorces, no family crisises, no adolescents “rebellion» and so on. But on the
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other hand there is the strict division between male and female world, there are rules for
managing of all details of living, there is no space for individual freedom, for choosing, for
experiencing any challenge. Grupińska talked only to one woman who has decided to leave
her ultra-orthodox world. This woman is very strict in her critical opinions of this kind of
living but any other interviewed persons didn’t agree with this view – they seem not to
understand the reason for questioning their status quo (and their identities, their
biographical lines).
Biographical research in education is focused both on socialization and on
educational biographies of adults. The second approach is developed by Olga Czarniawska
and her co-workers from Lodz Univesity and by E. Anna Wesołowska from Torun
Univesity.
Czerniawska concentrates on the role of adult’s biography and its interpretation and
reinterpretation as a mean of understanding of the adult and self-understanding. Her aim is
to gain wisdom rather than to collect any particular information or to learn any skills.
Exploring one’s biography should lead individual toward growth of their sense of life.
Czerniawska and her students conducted the biographical projects using interviews and
uncompleted sentences to investigate memories of childhood, memories of school carried by
adult students, and to diagnose developmental needs of elderly women. Projects conducted
by these researchers are not intentionally but unavoidably focused on women because of the
dominance of female students on pedagogical studies.
Wesołowska carried out research together with W. Giesecke from Humboldt
University in Berlin. The research study concerned on women’s educational consciousness
and was leaded in 1996-1998 on about 100 women in the age of 24-55 still studying or
completing their studies. The results showed that contemporary women live in Poland were
aware that their educational ambitions were shaped by social reality considered
discriminating for them.
Two projects focusing on socialization are conducting by young researchers from
universities in Gdansk and Torun.
Lucyna Kopciewicz in her dissertation title Cultural meanings of femininity and
pedagogy of differences used fenomenographical analysis to learn what is the habitus of
women’s roles in our society.
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In the second project, The role of mothers in forming their daughters’ patterns of
lives, Joanna Ostrouch-Kowalska interviewed adult women in their 40. (in the period of
middle-life crisis) to learn how they position their mothers in the biographies. Relations
between women are still not treated as worthy and important in our society but the author
used feminist theories to find out the meaning of women’s world.
Biographic method and woman issues – research perspectives, possibility and areas of
applying in the Polish humanistic science
Biographic materials show the composed context of woman problems: cultural,
sociological and educational ones. This type of research exposes on different platforms the
heart (essence) of woman experiences. The short review of problems tackled and analyzed
by Polish researchers using the biographic method shows some research possibilities and
directions of further searching. There is a number of areas in Polish psychology that have
not been investigated so far but they call for psychological reflection possible to be taken up
by the biographical method. Problems contained in wildly defined woman issue are at the
same time “hot social problems». Those that deserve out attention are:
problems connected with economic and social transformation:
(e.g. problems with professional “burning out», women’s unemployment)
women at job market (e.g. professional career and promotion, women in “men»
professions)
women’s sexuality (e.g. sexual identity, homosexuality, transsexuality)
areas of woman pathology (e.g. prostitution, and delinquency among women in Poland)
possibility to use the biographic method in psychological therapy
The dynamic social changes that took place in Poland on the turn of the 20th century
require applying of a new research formula especially to the extent of so called woman
issue. It is possible thanks to the biographic method that reveals the specific picture of the
social events. Such a picture shows individual experiences that create a biography which
reflects the world seen by women.
An assumption can be drawn that the biographic paradigm in the research on a
woman issue is finding (or has already found) its place in the Polish humanistic science.
Although many problems especially methodological ones require discussions (e.g. a pattern
of research procedure, settlement of aptness problem and reliability of research results).
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Maternity or homelessness, women’s alcoholism “taken out» of a biography distort
the real picture. Therefore it is necessary to formulate them against the biographic
background. And when you understand these phenomenon from the biographic perspective
you will be able to get to know them entirely.
References:
Bartosz B, Błażej E., 1996, O doświadczaniu bezdomności, Warszawa, Scholar.
Czerniawska O., 1998, «Badania biograficzne i ich rola w kształceniu andragogicznym»,
«Edukacja Dorosłych» (Radom), nr 4.
Czerniawska O., 1998, «Biografie edukacyjne i
andragogicznym», «Edukacja Dorosłych», nr 2.
ich
znaczenie
w
kształceniu
Czerniawska O., 2000, «Pamięć dzieciństwa», «Edukacja Dorosłych», nr 3, ss.9-17.
Dubas E., 1998, «Biograficzność w oświacie dorosłych – wybrane stanowiska», «Edukacja
Dorosłych», nr 3.
Grupińska A., (2000), Najtrudniej jest spotkać Lilit. Opowieści chasydek (The most difficult
is to meet Lilit), Warszawa: Wyd. Książkowe “Twój STYL».
Kondratowicz E., (2000), Szminka na sztandarze. Kobiety w “Solidarności» (Lipistick on
the banner), Warszawa.
Kopciewicz L., 2001, «Przemoc symboliczna i kobiecy habitus – badanie efektów
urodzajowionej socjalizacji», «Człowiek-Teraźniejszość-Edukacja», nr 2, ss.79-88.
Kopciewicz L., 2002, Kulturowe znaczenie kobiecości a pedagogika różnic, Gdańsk
(nieopublikowana praca doktorska)
Mc Leod J., 2001, Qualitative Research in Consuelling and Psychoteraphy, London, Sage
Publications.
Ostrouch-Kowalska J., Rola matek w kształtowaniu wzorów życia córek. Studium
socjopedagogiczne, Toruń (niepublikowana praca doktorska).
Pałka A., 1998, «Wykorzystywanie wywiadu narracyjnego i metody biograficznej w
diagnozie potrzeb rozwojowych człowieka starszego», «Edukacja Dorosłych», nr 3.
Penn S., 1994, «Tajemnica państwowa» (Secret of the State), tłum. Anetta Konstantowska,
«Pełnym głosem», nr 2.
Skibińska Ewa, 2000, «Pamieć znaczących osób i wydarzeń w edukacji kobiet», «Edukacja
Dorosłych», nr 4.
Stelmaszczyk Jeanne, 1998, «’Pamięć szkoły’ –
humanistycznych», «Edukacja Dorosłych», nr 2.
słuchaczy
wyższych
szkół
Wesołowska E. Anna, 2000, «Świadomość edukacyjna kobiet – refleksje z badań
biograficznych», «Edukacja Dorosłych», nr 3.
Woźnicka Elżbieta, 1998, «Pamięć szkoły uczących się dorosłych», «Edukacja Dorosłych»,
nr 2.
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www.oska.org.pl
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