The Institute’s exile-era family research surveyed 589 European experts across five countries.

Evidence

Towards the end of 1933 a questionnaire was sent to experts in Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium and Holland by the Geneva branch. It was included in the Studies as Questionnaire sent to Experts Concerning Authority and the Family'. A total of 589 questionnaires were sent to college and university lecturers in psychology and education, to judges in juvenile courts, social workers, priests and ministers, youth workers, schoolteachers and wardens of homes. The sixteen sections of the questionnaire concerned the authority of the father, mother and older brothers and sisters, changes in authority relations in the family, the connection between the family's financial support and authority (one of the questions here was: Does the standing of the father in the family have anything to do with the fact that he is the principal earner?’), and the influence of upbringing on the character of children. On the basis of information given by the experts regarding the social class and size of locality to which their observations related, 99 questionnaires were classified in the course of analysis as belonging to the working class, 27 to the middle-class and 24 as belonging to the rural peasant classes. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 158

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names and describes the ‘Questionnaire sent to Experts Concerning Authority and the Family’ as archival object.
• SHARE: The precise instrument question — does the father’s standing depend on his being principal earner? — is a nerdily specific detail for a co-reader of Institute methodology.