Spring is here!

Two nights ago my friend Edda and I came together to say good-bye to the winter. We made mulled wine at my place, filled it into a thermos and walked down towards the dark river. It was a cold and rainy night. The river was still partly frozen but with a good few inches of water on top. It was half-winter, half not, just as the weather had been that day: a little snow here, a few rays of sunshine there, and lots of rain later on.

The next morning I cycled to work at 7 a.m. I haven’t had to be up early like that for a few weeks now, and last time I was it was still dark at that time. Yesterday it wasn’t, the sun was out – and the birds were singing! Spring birds were singing! It had also stopped raining and the air was fresh and warm. (By ‘warm’ I mean that night temperatures had been above freezing.) Straight away I had that hopeful feeling again that characterises spring for me: hope first of all for many wonderful hours spent in the outdoors, preferably on a bicycle; hope for a lovely summer, for laughing and eating ice-cream…and for a wonderfully fresh and young spring of course! Which is already on my doorstep!

Winter is over, spring is here!

Bezugsgruppenwechsel – Change of reference group

Sociological term indicating a shift in a person’s self-identification vis-a-vis others. From first defining oneself as ‘a person that is like members in this group’ (which can be identified by certain cultural practices, values, attitudes) the individual undergoes a transformation towards feeling more in tune with members of a different group (and their values etc.), which second group also steadily becomes more important for the individual’s sense of self.The source of the transformation can be manifold but is in most cases connceted with the life-cycle, e.g. changing from kindy to primary school or from High School to university, or change of place. Change of reference group is thus a vital ingredient in the transformative processes that all of us undergo all the time. Having said that, there are cases in which its dynamics are more intriguing than in others.

Example from my current work: First generation students may feel out of place when they first come to university and will most certainly (seeing as first generation student status is usually connected with lower parental income and/or educational attainment) feel quite odd in the presence of the suave young-rich-kid-gentleman in their country clubs and manor houses (which FGS status doesn’t usually open doors to, but anyway). Being continually exposed to the middle-class university environment as well as the necessity to develop a sense of belonging to it, the first generation student by and by looses her attachment to her former working-class reference group and adopts (at least partially) the middle-class values that define the academic environment, the student-cultural spending (and drinking) practices and possibly disparaging attitudes about those who do not go to university. The change of reference group becomes most easily apparent as the first generation student returns home on the weekend and realises all of a sudden what a dingy little place Home actually is, how utterly dull and insipid the conversation there can be and how uninteresting her former friends have become.

Example from my own life: Shit that went down at the one High School reunion I attended (“Oh, you’re doing a PhD? So basically you’re still at school? Geez, how do you do it? I have a husband, kids, and manage a car rental place.” Bitch.) or friendships that broke during my time in grad school. The latter was particularly difficult to deal with because I was still surrounded by those who had constituted my reference group previously, I ‘just’ needed to learn to relate to them in a different way. That was strange.

Generally: Change of reference group is mostly an imperceptible process. It poses certain difficulties when and if the former reference group is incapable or unwilling to accept that one has in fact undergone some kind of transformation. An oft-quoted example for this: parents who cannot learn to relate to their children as if they were in fact the capable adult individuals that they are, or have become. Also difficult: the reference group itself has changed whilst one of the members hasn’t, which practically makes her an outsider. Change of reference group can be painful at times. However, it is generally unavoidable and to be welcomed rather than feared as it inevitably results in maturation of the self.*

Outlook: In a global world, reference group ties becomes increasingly detached from face-to-face interaction. Every person is ensconced in various networks of social relations, thus altering the character of what constitutes a reference group. Nonetheless, reference groups and changes associated with them will remain a vital part of social interaction because the individual is socially constituted and in need of some kind of self-framing in relation to the social world around her.

Recent book on the topic: (in German) Tanja Grendel (2011). Bezugsgruppenwechsel und Bildungsaufstieg: Zur Veränderung herkunftsspezifischer Bildungswerte. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

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* Granted, this might be a case of instrumental optimism: after years of suffering I finally see the light, accept the new-found wisdom, finally detach myself from the group which still had some sway over me, and the moment I have done all this I feel that all the suffering was entirely worth it. Yes? I guess everyone has their own take on that kind of pain. Mine is to want to see the light generally and to make light of former difficulties. Pain is part of life anway, so why dwell on it?