The Life Course Interview

The Life Course Interview

Introduction

There has been an extensive research on life course interview to understand different socioeconomic and psychological factors experienced by the person throughout his life. The interview not only helps to understand person's behavior and attitudes towards these experiences, but it also aids in bridging the generational differences. These differences include generation's categorization, traditional and modern personality traits, preferences and choices, study and work attitudes, and difference in family values

In this paper, the interview is presented and analyzed under different psychological theories. The subject of the interview is a grandfather of a close family friend, who is Filipino descent and hails from an island, named Luzon. These people are different in values and practices. They have a big family and at one given moment four generations are living in their house including great grandparents, grandparents, their son, his wife and three kids. Being in a joint family system, their values are different, like, grandchildren will kiss the right hand of great grandparents whenever, they will leave or enter the house. They are very strict in ensuring that every member of the house is attending church regularly. The great grandparents had been serving in the police department. So, the discipline is the main factor of the house.

With this, respect for elders, country and the Army also prevail in the family. The grandfather, Mr. Jordan Patrick, is a retired veteran from the US army. Hence, interviewing a grandfather and peeping in his life course was learning and at the same time fun. The interview is then analyzed in the light of relevant theories of human behavior and development in the social environment to study the behavior and attitudes in the early life, middle age, and elderly life stages.

Findings of the Interview

Mr. Jordan Patrick was born in 1938 to father, who a part-Spanish and a mother, who was pure Filipina. He was the eldest of his five siblings- three younger brothers and two sisters. Jordan's father was a landlord and used to own several hectares of land. Their main crops were tobacco, rice, corn and other crops. They also had some farm animals such as cattle, goat, pigs and different fowls. They were paid by the land with money or fresh harvest.

With this, Jordan's father used to serve in the police of the town. He was a very strict man who closely controlled children and treated them with harsh words, even with flogging, kneeling, and standing under the noon sun. If one of the children was really naughty, he was tied for the whole day in the center of the small town and the whole community would it. That tough was the family discipline Jordan was accustomed to.

When asked, he shared that like his grandfather, his father was also strict. They would not hesitate to punish their children whether it was a boy or a girl. In that strict environment and being the eldest of the siblings, he was made to certain things his ...