| title: | Life Plans and Life Course in the Post-Socialist Estonia: Biographies of the Generation of Winnners |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF5109 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
5.3. Sociology |
| status: | completed |
| institution: | Institute of International and Social Studies at TUES |
| head of project: | Ellu Saar |
| duration: | 01.01.2002 - 31.12.2004 |
| description: | .The grant is needed for conducting and analyzing biographical interviews (25-30 interviews) with members of winners age cohort to clarify the relationship between biographies and institutions, to understand how different structural framework influence the changes of individuals. Our project will endeavour to study the interrelationship between macro-level post-socialist change and individual-level decision making processes. In contrast to traditional rational choice approaches, which normally treat the decision situation as "time-less", the project attempts to reconstruct the unfolding courses of action in their time-related sequence. It is important to identify the structural constraints, within the life course which cut down the set of abstractly possible alternatives to a smaller subset of feasible actions. Emphasizing only changing social structure does not address how these changes enter the lives of individuals trying to cope with them. Because the decision between the possible alternatives is made by individuals, the mechanisms must be conceptualized as based on the tastes, beliefs and expectations of individual agents. Three subjects are at the center of this project: the central role of life planning and occupational career in socialist as well as in post-socialist societies; the turning point in individual careers as a result of social changes; the inner logic (self-binding mechanisms) of personal destinies. .. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Ellu Saar | Institute for International and Social Studies TPU | senior researcher | |