The Development of a Postmodern Self: A Computer-Assisted Comparative Analysis of Personal Documents

The Development of a Postmodern Self: A Computer-Assisted Comparative Analysis of Personal Documents

The Development of a Postmodern Self: A Computer-Assisted Comparative Analysis of Personal Documents

The Development of a Postmodern Self: A Computer-Assisted Comparative Analysis of Personal Documents

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Overview

Wood and Zurcher suggest that the social self—its experience and organization—reflects the great transformation of society from industrial to postindustrial. . . . Wood and Zurcher have contributed to our social psychological understanding of self-development in several ways. They pack information about theories of modern self-hood into a well-researched and accessible book. Readers will find a resource on theories of the postmodern self here. The authors also introduce a creative use of computerized content analysis, which they successfully demonstrate by transforming personal documents into social scientific data.
Contemporary Sociology

According to various observers, the postmodern self represents changes in contemporary culture—from rationality and unemotional performance to irrationality and mysticism; from institutional standards and duty-to-society to individual standards and duty-to-self; from structure and stability to transience and experimentation. Through an analysis of diaries from nineteenth- and twentieth-century Americans, this study deals with the nature of the postmodern self. It provides a framework for understanding the ideas that collectively comprise postmodern self theory and presents empirical data concerning its historical validity. The book reflects the use of a computer approach in which the statistical incidence of particular words is examined over time.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780313254581
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 03/11/1988
Series: Controversies in Science , #70
Pages: 192
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

MICHAEL R. WOOD is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he also serves as an instructor in the Graduate Program in Social Research.

LOUIS A. ZURCHER JR. was Ashbel Smith Distinguished Professor of Social Work and Sociology at the University of Texas, Austin.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Introduction
The Background of the Postmodern Self: Industrial and Postindustrial Society
Speculations on a "New Self"
New Culture and Overdeveloped Modernism
The Challenge of Studying Self and Social Change
The Use of Personal Documents in Social Science Research
Qualitative Analysis of Personal Documents: From Resolution to Realization
The Computer-Assisted Analysis of Diaries: Self and Social Change
Quantitive Analysis of Personal Documents: Institution vs. Impulse/Product vs. Process
The Postmodern Self: Summary and Discussion
Recasting the Theory: From Modern to Postmodern Self, Therapeutic Ethic, and Organizational Process
Appendices: A: Content Analysis Dictionary; B: Diary Bibliographic Sources Not Cited in Text
Bibliography
Index

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