The name is absent

PART C: Individual case studies
10. Interactions

We now go on to present some more detailed case studies, giving the overall
individual profiles, which cannot be understood from the quotations above. In
analysing the benefits of learning through these individual biographies, we are
particularly concerned to explore the complex interactions between the various
domains of public and private life. Sometimes there are relatively simple and direct
connections to be made between a specific learning episode and a defined benefit -
for example, where participation leads directly to a specific and observable
improvement in health. More often, the effect is diffused over a number of domains
which themselves interact, as when participation enables the learner to access a social
network, which itself brings benefits irrespective of the content of the learning.
Almost any permutation of two or more areas is a meaningful relationship to explore.
Indeed permutations of more than two are also potentially fruitful. However, the
interactions are so complex that we are unlikely to aspire to bring them all into a
single equation with numerical values assigned to each interrelationship. Qualitative
investigation of dyadic or triangular relationships is a more likely path. (This is
emphatically not to privilege qualitative over quantitative analysis - see Schuller &
Bynner, 2001.)

The individual diagrams that accompany the case studies are simple maps of the
pathways and interconnections given to us in the personal accounts. But they are also
included as a contribution to methodological debate. We have found it extremely
helpful to attempt to pull together the findings in this diagrammatic form, for a
number of reasons:

- in developing our own individual analyses;

- in sharing these with colleagues and validating each others’ analyses;

- in presenting the results to others.

They are therefore included as a modest contribution to capacity-building, since we
believe that they offer a useful and practical way of managing evidence,
complementary to verbal and of course quantitative analysis.

In this section we look at the interactions between health, family and civic
participation effects through three different biographies. In the following section we
look particularly at issues in relation to communication and (inter)dependence.

10.1 Juliet

Juliet is white, 50 years old and has been married for 29 years. She has two children,
aged 10 and 14. She has worked as a library assistant but having been at home with
her children from 1979 to 1987 has undertaken courses/voluntary work. Her voluntary

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