Comparer des méthodes

	Recherche biographique comparative	Recherche biographique
Domaine	Qualitatif	Qualitatif
Famille	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Année d'origine	1970s–1980s	Late 19th–early 20th century (Dilthey ~1883; Thomas & Znaniecki 1918–1920)
Auteur d'origine	Daniel Bertaux; Paul Thompson	Wilhelm Dilthey (hermeneutic foundations); Thomas & Znaniecki (sociological application); Norman Denzin (interpretive biography)
Type	Qualitative comparative research design	Qualitative research method
Source fondatrice	Bertaux, D. (Ed.). (1981). Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences. Sage. ISBN: 978-0803914025	Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive Biography. Sage Publications.
Alias	comparative biography, cross-case biographical analysis, biographical comparative method, comparative life-story research	life history research, biographical method, life story research, biographical narrative inquiry
Apparentées	6	6
Résumé	Comparative biographical research is a qualitative design that gathers in-depth life-story accounts from multiple participants and systematically compares them to identify structural patterns, commonalities, and divergences across individual biographies. Rooted in the sociological life-history tradition, it moves beyond single-case description to generate broader theoretical insights about how social conditions, historical contexts, and personal agency shape individual trajectories.	Biographical research is a qualitative method that examines individual lives in depth — through life-history interviews, personal documents, letters, and autobiographical narratives — to understand how personal experience intersects with social, historical, and cultural forces. Rooted in Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutics and made prominent in sociology by Thomas and Znaniecki's study of Polish immigrants, it treats the individual life story as a window onto broader social structures and processes. It belongs to the narrative inquiry subfamily alongside oral history and life-story research.