Stručni rad

An Attempt at a Typology of Time Use

Katja Boh ; Institut za socioloijo in filozofijo pri Univerzi v Ljubljani Ljubljana, Cankarjeva 1/IV
Stane Saksida ; Institut za socioloijo in filozofijo pri Univerzi v Ljubljani Ljubljana, Cankarjeva 1/IV

Sažetak

The duration of an activity depends on the quality of the relationships within the structure of the investigated system, that is to say, within man as a biological, social, and psychological entity within a temporal framework defined by habitual social patterns of behavior. Or in other words, besides the physical »inner time« there are also the biological, the psychological and the social time each with its corresponding level of interpretation. At these levels the weights are attributed to activities with respect to their function rather than their duration.
From the point of view of economics 20 hours of shopping can be taken as merely an indicator of the decision to purchase which again is nothing but a point in time, thus has no dimension in time even though it might as a process have taken one minute or one month.
From the point of view of the sociological content and significance of an activity it can be seen that both a worker and a manager can work ten hours daily, but this fact can be utilized in only a limited number of very specific theories. By and large this fact is theoretically often irrelevant.
!f duration is taken as the fundamental index of the significance of an activity at a certain level of interpretation, then the physical time should be transformed into the inner time of this system in specific situations. Technically this could be done by weighting the physical time at a specific level of analysis and lor a specific problem. Before weighting, however, three basic conditions would have to be satisfied:
— the explanation of the fundamental categories and general statements of the theory within the framework of which the research is done,
— the definition of the problems to be solved, and of the ends their solution will serve,
— the definition of specific situations in which the problems are being solved. Unless these conditions are fulfilled, weighting becomes a mere multiplication of the numerically expressed assumptions by physical time, that is, no new information is obtained. In other words, such a procedure would call for the formulation of the theoretical assumptions of a specific typology of activities linked with the differentiation of groups in society and the differentiation of the total use of time for certain types of activities, before the technique of numerical typology itself could be developed.
Our negative experiences might prove instructive to future research workers in this field. They can be summed up in the following way:
1. An investigation of the d u r a t i o n of activities should include the total time within which these activities are pursued. They are evidently representative only for that time. But if we want to have a representative sample for a study of the activities as a whole, then the spending of the days should be observed for a longer period of time in typical seasons of the year, in typical atmospheric, social and psychological environments and, for various daily, annual and life rhythms. In wiev of these demands we are more likely to obtain objective results if we carried out our investigation by recording the time of a specialized group, under specified conditions rather than the population as a whole.
2. In such investigations it is necessary to determine the level of meaning of each activity for an individual, for the group to which he belongs, and for the total environment in which he lives, institutions in which he works, positions which he holds, etc. Each level of meaning must be adapted to the specific aims of the research.
3. Only if we take into account all these limitations and demands, is it reasonable to continue with the investigation of the possibilities of constructing specific typologies of time use.

Ključne riječi

Hrčak ID:

156476

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/156476

Datum izdavanja:

31.12.1973.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

Posjeta: 1.120 *