The unemployed from Marienthal

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Last remnant of the former workers' settlement (restored in 2008)

The unemployed from Marienthal. A sociographic experiment on the effects of long-term unemployment (1933) is the title of a study by Marie Jahoda , Paul Felix Lazarsfeld and Hans Zeisel on the consequences of unemployment , which is one of the classics of empirical sociology. The study showed the socio-psychological effects of unemployment and made it clear that long-term unemployment does not lead to revolt - as is often assumed - but to passive resignation .

The investigation

Today, the project carried out by a team led by Marie Jahoda and Paul Lazarsfeld is considered a milestone in the development of empirical social research (see also: Participant observation , field research ) and a prime example of theory building in a combination of quantitative , qualitative , found and collected data. Even if these concepts are more recent than the work on the unemployed by Marienthal , the foundations for these methods were laid here - under the term sociography .

The Marienthal workers' settlement is located in Gramatneusiedl , a place near Vienna . The closure of a factory, after which the community was founded, led to a sharp rise in unemployment during the Great Depression around 1931. Otto Bauer , the leading man of Austrian social democracy at the time, suggested to Lazarsfeld and Zeisel to conduct a study on this topic and also named the place Marienthal.

In order to gain access to the people in Marienthal, the authors of this study not only sought contact with political and social groups and associations, but also carried out clothing collections , medical consultations, educational advice, gymnastics and drawing courses. The aim was to win people over to the research project. At the same time, each of these means (including the consultation hours that are ethically problematic from today's perspective) also served to obtain information about the Marienthal population through participatory observation.

Cadastral sheets were created for each family in Marienthal, on which the various observations and interviews were recorded, from the orderly or disordered condition of the apartment when visiting because of the collection of clothes to things related to the educational counseling, the doctor's visit or the observation in the “workers' home “Were discussed. About thirty detailed interviews were conducted, some time management journals were made, and meal lists were made. The official statistics were also used. Lotte Schenk-Danzinger played a major role in this work. However, tensions of a personal and political nature have evidently arose in the work team, so that Danzinger was not included as a co-author in the publication.

The published result of the study gives a broad and in-depth overview of life with the form of unemployment benefit at that time, without any prospect of employment soon. In particular, it traces how the time budget changes due to the hopelessness caused by unemployment. If there is actually a task to be performed, it is left behind anyway. There is no time management, the fixed grid, a daily structure.

Impact of the study

Due to a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of social research ( observation , structured observation protocols, household surveys , questionnaires , time use sheets, interviews , discussions and simultaneous assistance) determined by the current state of the research process , this work, first published in 1933, is methodologically trend-setting - even if its reception in German-speaking countries is only just beginning Years or decades later. The group of Austrian research sociologists used the example of the small town of Marienthal, which was shaped by the declining textile industry, to demonstrate in their field research for the first time in this form, precision and depth the socio-psychological effects of unemployment and showed in the main result that unemployment does not become active (as was mostly expected until then) Revolution , but rather leads to passive resignation .

The unemployed from Marienthal is not only a dense empirical description illustrated with many examples, but also a socially-theoretically stimulating work with a view to the four types of attitudes: the internally unbroken, the resigned, the desperate and the neglected apathetic - with only the first type still "Knew plans and hopes for the future", while the resignation, despair and apathy of the three other types "led to the renunciation of a future that no longer even plays a role in the imagination as a plan". The ability to preserve and develop “plans and hopes for the future”, in other words not to lose a fundamental dimension of human creative ability: the anticipation of possible developments, proved to be a decisive dimension.

The research report written by Marie Jahoda is supported in the book edition (1975) by a "preamble" written by Lazarsfeld in the 1950s, in which the study is classified in relation to the then and contemporary currents of sociology , and the methodological ones written for the first book edition Zeisel's appendix on the history of sociography added.

According to the authors of the study are in Vienna in the 17th district Hernals the Marie Jahoda alley , in the 21st district Floridsdorf the Lazarsfeld alley and in the 22nd district Danube city , the Schenk-Danzingers Alley named.

filming

Audio

  • "Marienthal - a town remembers": Radio broadcast in the series "Memo" 1981, Ö1 (ORF).
  • "Marienthal Revisited". Radio College Part 1,2,3; 2008, Ö1 (ORF).

Text output

  • The unemployed from Marienthal. A sociographic experiment on the effects of long-term unemployment . Hirzel, Leipzig 1933. First new edition: Allensbach 1960; Published as a book by Verlag Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-518-10769-0

literature

theatre

  • Ulf Schmidt : The Marienthaler badger; Author's Prize May 4, 2014 of the Heidelberger Stückemarkt ( [3] ); September 25, 2015 World premiere at the Volkstheater Vienna under the direction of Volker Lösch; whole text under ( [4] .

Web links

Commons : Marienthal (Gramatneusiedl)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
photos

Footnotes

  1. ^ Gertrude Wagner: About Lotte Schenk-Danzinger's share in the Marienthal study. Vienna, February 24, 1984, on the website of the Archives for the History of Sociology in Austria.
  2. ^ Marie Jahoda, Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, Hans Zeisel: The unemployed from Marienthal. A sociographic experiment on the effects of long-term unemployment. Hirzel, Leipzig 1933. (First new edition: Allensbach 1960; published as a book by Verlag Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-518-10769-0 .)
  3. ↑ [1] Accessed May 13, 2009