Ulrich Kohler

New Developments in Sequence Analysis

Sequence analysis was originally invented by biologists with the aim of comparing DNA sequences in order to find out to what extent two DNA strands are homologous to each other or, in other words, to determine the distance between them (Kruskal 1983). The established degree of similarity then allows for conclusions about a common ancestor of two DNA strands. The initial utilization of sequence analysis in sociology was made in the 1980s, with Andrew Abbott’s work on musicians’ careers and ritual dances (Abbott 1983; Abbott and Forrest 1986). Here, sequence analysis was seen as a more qualitative tool in the context of historical, narrative sociology. Due to the limited capacity of computers, analysis was restricted to only a few cases with short sequences. With increasing technological development in the 1990s, researchers began to focus on individual sequences, such as class careers (Halpin and Chan 1998), employment biographies (Abbott and Hrycak 1990; Blair-Loy 1999; Pollock, Antcliff, and Ralphs 2002), family histories (Elzinga and Liefbroer 2007), school-to-work transitions (Scherer 2001; Schoon et al. 2001; McVicar and Anyadike-Danes 2002; BrzinskyFay 2007), and life-course trajectories (Billari and Piccarreta 2005; Wiggins et al. 2007; Martin, Schoon, and Ross 2008). The technical situation improved further with both increasing processor speed and wider availability of software implementations, such as the various implementations of sequence analysis in the Stata package, which enabled more researchers from different disciplines to compare sequences of large numbers of individuals, finding out similarities, quantifying certain characteristics, or grouping Editorial

Eine empirische Untersuchung einer Individualisierungshypothese am Beispiel der Parteipräferenz von 1953–1992

Neben der Diskussion um die Bedeutung von Lebensstilen erfreut sich im Rahmen „der sozialwissenschaftlich informierten Zeitbetrachtung“ (Armingeon 1994: 55) kaum ein Thema so groser Popularitat wie die sogenannte „Individualisierungsdiskussion“ (Beck und Beck-Gernsheim 1993). Ausgangspunkt dieser Diskussion ist bekanntlich die Idee der Auflosung kollektiver und gruppenspezifischer Orientierungsschemata. In der BRD wurde diese Diskussion vor allem durch die Veroffentlichung des Essays von Beck (1983) angeregt.2 Beck (1986: 122) glaubte einen abnehmenden Wirklichkeitsgehalt von Klassen- und Schichtmodellen in der Nachkriegsgeschichte feststellen zu konnen: Klassen zeichneten sich nicht mehr langer durch „standisches Geprage“ und „soziale (Selbst-) Wahrnehmbarkeit“ aus; ihre Abgrenzung durch „Kontakt-, Hilfs- und Heiratskreise“ sowie ihre „bewuste und gelebte Besonderheit“ gehorten der Vergangenheit an (Beck 1986: 139–143). Im vermeintlichen Obsoletwerden des Klassenbegriffs wird daher haufig der Kern der „Individualisierungshypothese“ gesehen (so z.B. bei Drexel 1994: 14–15).

Well-being and Inequality*

An objective and a subjective approach to study well-being is introduced. The objective approach is particularly useful to compare the quality of life of given societies across time and space. Using the objective approach, we can identify strong differences of quality of life between European countries. In comparison to Western Europe, East European countries tend to have a rather low quality of life. Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium form a cluster of countries with high quality of life. The subjective approach to study well-being is useful for investigating the importance of dimensions of social inequality for people themselves. It is shown that most of the inequality dimensions traditionally analysed by social scientists affect peoples subjective well-being. However, it is also shown that some of the more materialistic inequality dimensions (such as income) tend to be less important in rich societies, while certain non-materialistic dimensions (such as family) are getting more important. The subjective approach to study well-being is also used to investigate the importance of characteristics of societies for peoples well-being.

The Potsdam Grievance Statistics File. New data on quality of life and political participation for the German Democratic Republic 1970–1989

ABSTRACT The newly collected “Potsdam Grievance Statistics File” (PGSF) holds data on the number and topics of grievances (“Eingaben”) that were addressed to local authorities of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the years 1970 to 1989. The PGSF allows quantitative analyses on topics such as participation, quality of life, and value change in the German Democratic Republic. This paper introduces the concepts of the data set and discusses the validity of its contents.