Biography and Generation in Social and Educational Research

For several decades, Peter Alheit has been an influential advocate of biographical research. Typically, his writing is distinguished by a capacity for balancing the particularity of individual biography with a search for patterns and trends. This analytical balancing act rests on a foundation of sociological theory (developing concepts from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias among others), an insistence on the importance of primary empirical data drawn from individual life stories, and a strong sense of the collective experience of far-reaching social and economic change as lived through everyday lives. While his work has had a particular impact in adult education, it is not surprising that his scholarly studies and influence have impacted on methodological debates, as well as touching on wider social science concerns for such concepts as social class and social milieu, as well as over attempts to operationalise the sometimes baroque complexities of Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of habitus, capital and disposition.