BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACHES - LOOKING INTO QU ESTIONNAIRES AND INTERVIEWS

This article presents the major results of a comparison between biogra phical ''itineraries'' collected through questionnaires in the INSEE s urvey on ''living conditions'' (1986-87) and those collected at a late r date through interviews with the same population by the authors of t his work. By comparing the responses to the questionnaires and intervi ews, the incidence of each approach on the way individuals tell the '' story of their life'' is highlighted and thus contributes to the debat e on these different ways of collecting biographical data. What kind o f approach to social ''trajectories'' do they allow for ? What congrue nces, differences and divergencies are brought to light by comparing r econstructions of life itineraries ? Differences between the biographi cal data collected are induced by the framework of each method, which is more rigid in questionnaires and more permissive in interviews, but the reconstruction of the major reorientations of itineraries most of ten converges. However, the differences are most important when the di mension shaping the subject's trajectory is ''omnipresent'' in one met hod and absent from the other, as for exemple geographical or resident ial mobility.