Strategic Frame Construction Among the Unemployed: A Case Study
Sarah Chodorow
Beloit College
Box 1945
700 College Street
Beloit, WI 53511 chodorow@beloit.edu
978-502-3370
Faculty Advisor:
Kathryn Linnenberg, Ph.D
Beloit College
700 College St.
Beloit, WI 53511 linnenbe@beloit.edu
608-363-2306
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Strategic Frame Construction Among the Unemployed: A Case Study
Abstract:
This study focuses on the process of strategic framing among unemployed individuals, which can be defined as a way of selectively interpreting events and circumstances. The data are from a qualitative study of 20 unemployed clients of a food pantry in a mid-western city. I identify three categories of strategic framing used by the participants: 1) “faith” 2) “focusing on a specific goal” and
3) “embracement of a particular role or identity”. I then discuss both how these frames interact with other aspects of differential vulnerability and how strategic frame construction can contribute to a positive outlook in unemployment.
This paper examines the present economic recession using the sociological imagination , coined by C. Wright Mills, who stated that "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of society can be understood without understanding both." I will discuss the United States' epidemic of joblessness as it has been experienced by 20 unemployed clients of a small food and clothing pantry located in a small blue collar city in the midwest. This city’s plight of unemployment began with the closing of one of its major employers, which was divided and sold in April 2000. This corporation had employed approximately 1,400 workers in the area and its closing was a huge blow to the city, so much so that residents of the city took it upon themselves to devote a website to documenting the entire process that led to its shutdown (Bagnato, 2001). The city was more recently hit by the closing of the nearby General Motors plant, another one of the area’s major employers (and subsidiary suppliers), in December 2008. With the recent loss of yet another of the city’s main employers, the job market has continued to decline, and the employment losses in manufacturing have been amplified by losses in both retail and real estate. Throughout most of 2009, the city’s unemployment rate has been the highest in its state, hitting 18% in May 2009.
As a student intern through a small liberal arts college in the city, and therefore a

3 transient member of the community, I was in a unique position to observe the impact of the economic hardships. I began interning at this food pantry in January 2009, in the midst of this recession, and I soon began to hear a refrain of intense frustration at the complete lack of jobs in the area.
The observation that initially sparked my research was seeing how certain clients seemed to approach their circumstances with an attitude of determination and general optimism even in the toughest of times, while others seemed to be at the point of giving up. My main question going into my investigation was as follows: what factors contribute to an individual's positive or negative mindset in the face of unemployment?
To construct my interview guide, I drew on past literature on the psychosocial effects of unemployment. As I completed some of my interviews, I also began to draw on literature about framing theory, and my original research question evolved as follows: what frames do individuals construct to interpret and/or cope with the negative circumstance of unemployment and how do these frames contribute to a positive or negative mindset? Eventually, framing theory became the means by which I made the most sense of the information I collected in my interviews. Throughout the course of my investigation, I found myself in the midst of a constant dialogue between what I heard in my interviews and what I learned from the literature I read. I have tried to capture this conversation in this paper.
Literature Review
The Social Dependency Model of Unemployment
One of the most influential works in the study of unemployment is Jahoda et al.’s (1972) study of Marienthal, a small town in Austria that lost its main employer and

4 became almost entirely jobless in the 1930s (Cole 2007). Jahoda et al. (1972) proposes a model for understanding the negative psychosocial effects of unemployment, contending that employment fulfills five deep-seated psychosocial needs: the need for a shared experience, the need for a time structure, the need for a collective purpose, the need for status and identity, and the need for regular activity (Cole 2007; Nordenmark and Strandh
1999; Roche 1990). According to this model, unemployed individuals are therefore deprived of a way to fulfill these needs.
More recent studies of unemployment using the symbolic interactionist approach have criticized aspects of this functionalist model because it does not take into account the dynamic nature of the individual and because it defines the effect on a person mainly in terms of his dependence on social institutions (Cole 2007; Nordenmark and Strandh
1999). A study by Roche (1990) effectively integrated the functionalist and symbolic interactionist approaches in examining the psychosocial need for a time structure. Roche
(1990) discussed the fact that American civilization has been built around the modern economy, which structures time according to hours of employment and hours of leisure.
While Roche (1990) did not contend that employment is the only way an individual can achieve a needed time structure, he acknowledged that “in studying contemporary social life, it would be unwise to try to formulate notions of basic human needs – including the need for some kind of experience of time, - without reference to the role of history and economy” (Roche 1990: 80). Roche (1990) posits that, in the modern economy, there is a distinct relationship between “work time” and “free time,” so much so that it is difficult to conceive of one without the other.
Investigating Differential Vulnerability to Unemployment

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Differential vulnerability can be defined as the significant interactions of various demographics or characteristics with a particular stressor, indicating differences among demographic groups in the impact of the stressor on health, in particular mental health
(Hamilton et al 1990). Differential vulnerability to the negative effects of unemployment has been investigated using a symbolic interactionist approach, taking into account the individual factors that make the experience of unemployment different for different people, rather than viewing the experience as completely defined by social institutions (as in the functionalist approach). In the existing symbolic interactionist literature, differential vulnerability to the psychosocial effects of unemployment was investigated in the context of four major themes. The first three themes, self-concept, stigma, and support, were notably interwoven both in how they presented themselves in my interviews and in how they were described in the previous literature. The fourth theme, personal control, was more easily understood as a product of the first three. For this reason, my analysis of personal control later became my gateway into the use of framing theory to better answer my original research question.
Defining Self-Concept in the Context of Unemployment
The self-concept of an individual can be defined as “a kind of working compromise between idealized images and imputed social identities” (Snow and
Anderson 1987: 1348). In the context of unemployment research, self-concept is relevant in part because a person’s employment status will often make up a part of her selfconcept, and a change in employment status will therefore affect that person’s assessment of her self-worth and identity (Cohn, 1978). A study by Nordenmark and Strandh (1999) explored Ezzy’s (1993) theory of status passage, which uses identity theory to

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“incorporate the interplay between an actively interpreting individual and social institutions” (Nordenmark and Strandh 1999: 579). Ezzy (1993) contends that
“unemployment has different consequences for mental well-being, depending on how central certain identities are for the individual, and on the extent to which the passage into unemployment disrupts the strategies used to sustain a positive self-image” (Nordenmark and Strandh 1999: 580). Nordenmark and Strandh then expand on this theory to say that an individual’s self-concept is “coupled to the desire to fulfill certain roles and reach certain goals, which are heavily influenced by the individual’s position in society. We can talk about these roles and goals as the socially defined needs of the individual. In this context, employment can be seen as a possible resource for meeting these needs”
(Nordenmark and Strandh 1999: 580). They go on to say that these needs will be different depending on the individual’s self-concept and social background, and that, by extension, employment will be of different importance to fulfill these needs. Finally, individuals should be able to “reinterpret their identity by redefining their needs such that the available resources can better meet them” (Nordenmark and Strandh 1999: 581).
Snow and Anderson (1987) further investigated the process of identity construction among a sample of homeless individuals. Their investigation was conducted on the premise that all humans have a deep-seated need to find a "sense of self-worth or personal significance" (Snow and Anderson 1987: 1339), and that this feeling of worth is at least partially dependent on a person's ability to find a role that offers him a socially valuable place in society. Snow and Anderson (1987) found three basic patterns of identity talk (verbal construction of identity) among the homeless individuals they studied. The first was referred to as "distancing," which involved the individual using

7 rhetoric that distanced himself from roles, individuals, or institutions that he found inconsistent with his own self-concept. The second was referred to as "embracement," which involved the avowal of particular roles or socially defined identities that the individual found consistent with his own self-concept. The third form was referred to as
"fictive storytelling," which involved "the narration of stories about one's past, present, or future experiences and accomplishments that have a fictive character to them" not because they were necessarily intended to deceive, but because they appeared to be either exaggerations of fact or complete fabrications (Snow and Anderson 1987: 1358-1359).
Defining Stigma in the Context of Unemployment
Unemployment has historically been viewed as a stigmatizing event, and losing one’s job is accompanied by a change in one’s status, both economically and socially
(Turner 1995; Figueira-McDonough 1978). According to Turner (1995), along with the loss of the employee role as a component of the self-concept, “job loss replaces a socially approved role with one of markedly lower prestige, often seen as deviant and shameful by others” (Turner 1995: 214). In this study, Turner also explored how the economic context surrounding a person’s unemployment could interact with other factors in influencing the negative effects on the individual, suggesting the possibility that, in a negative economic context, an individual will be more likely to attribute her unemployment to external causes rather than internal ones, and that “a high local unemployment rate allows job losers to see themselves as less socially stigmatized and personally deviant” (Turner 1995: 215). While this possibility was not directly supported by Turner's (1995) research, it was an interesting concept to consider while studying unemployment in an area as economically disadvantaged as the one I was working in.

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However, Turner's (1995) study also posited that a poor economic context would cause a higher level of stress and emotional strain for individuals with a lower education level and lower socioeconomic status because of their reduced likelihood of becoming reemployed.
In the information I collected from my interviews, as well as in much of the past symbolic interactionist unemployment literature, the extent to which an individual perceived his unemployment as stigmatizing was directly tied to the extent to which his loss of employment represented a blow to his self-concept. In other words, stigma was felt to a greater extent by those clients for whom employment was of greater importance in meeting their socially defined needs. One of the most important factors in determining these needs was their background and support network.
Defining Support in the Context of Unemployment
Support was a theme that was referenced in a number of studies, and was generally defined as the network of social supports surrounding an individual, made up of friends and family (Figueira-McDonough, 1978). In Figueira-McDonough’s (1978) study, a stronger social network was seen as a buffer to the negative psychological effects of unemployment.
Nordenmark and Strandh (1999) also referred to support as a means of fulfilling one’s needs. If an unemployed individual could meet some of her economic or social needs by utilizing support networks or getting help from a social service agency, she would thereby alleviate some of the mental distress resulting from her unemployment
(Nordenmark & Strandh, 1999).
As stated above, a support network is often comprised of both friends and family.

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For most people, their support network also reflects their social background to a great extent, and will therefore have had a hand in shaping their socially defined needs, thereby impacting both their self-concept and their perception of stigma.
Defining Personal Control in the Context of Unemployment
Personal control can be defined as the extent to which an individual views herself as in control of her own life and in control of the factors that affect her life (Creed and
Bartrum 2008). The agency model of unemployment views the negative effects of unemployment as a “consequence of decreased control over the life-situation”
(Nordenmark and Strandh 1999: 579). Creed and Bartrum (2008) found that personal control had a moderating effect on the negative consequences of unemployment; the more personal control a person felt, the more resilient he would be to the negative effects of his unemployment, while the less control he felt, the greater the impact of these negative effects on his mental well-being.
An Introduction to Framing Theory in the Context of Unemployment
Sociologists use framing theory mainly in applied research on social movements and collective action. “A frame is an ‘interpretative schema that simplifies and condenses the “world out there” by selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences, and sequences of action’ (Snow and Benford 1988: 137 in
Noakes and Johnston 2005: 3). When applied to social movements, a frame “identifies a problem that is social or political in nature, the parties responsible for causing the problem, and a solution” (Ryan 1981 in Noakes and Johnston 2005: 5). Framing in this context becomes strategic on the part of activists because, in order to inspire collective action, the frames produced must resonate with potential participants and inspire them to

10 join the movement (Noakes and Johnston 2005). This process can also be applied at the individual level. Goffman (1972) explored frames in the context of explaining how an individual navigates her everyday life and interactions. Frames at the micro-level essentially function as “mental templates of appropriate behavior for common situations, acquired through socialization and experience and fine-tuned by the individual on the basis of what worked in the past and/or what others report as useful. Thus, they are both individual and social” (Johnston 2005: 239). Noakes and Johnston (2005) state that frames are necessarily constructed from the ingredients of culture, history, and socialization. These frames are, however, constructed to serve the individual utilizing them, and can therefore be manipulated or reconstructed by that individual to better serve her in her daily life. I will be applying framing theory to much of the existing symbolic interactionist research on unemployment.
Methods
My research consisted of a qualitative case study using an availability sample of
20 unemployed clients of a small food and clothing pantry. (Insert Figure I about here)
I conducted in-depth, qualitative interviews with each volunteer after he or she had signed an Informed Consent form. I then transcribed these interviews, removing all names and addresses, but trying to maintain the vocal patterns of each participant.
I constructed my interview guide using the five recurring themes I found in past literature: self-concept, stigma, support, personal control, and the need for a time structure. I did my primary coding of the transcripts looking for these five themes as well, keeping in mind my original research question: What factors contribute to an

11 individual's positive or negative outlook in the face of unemployment? After looking at literature on identity construction and framing theory, I recoded my transcripts looking for examples of both frame construction and identity construction. Looking at my primary and secondary codings in conjunction with one another, I was able to begin answering my final research questions, which are as follows:
1. What frames do individuals construct to interpret and/or cope with unemployment?
2. How do these frames interact with the aforementioned themes of differential vulnerability?
3. How do these frames contribute to a positive or negative outlook?
Findings
I have used examples from client interviews to explore differential vulnerability and to identify common framing strategies among the participants. I begin with a discussion of the need for a time structure and then demonstrate the interplay of selfconcept, stigma, and support. I build on and further demonstrate this interplay throughout the paper.
I begin my discussion of strategic framing in the context of personal control and continue this discussion in the context of how clients perceive the experience of seeking institutional support. In conclusion, I identify three basic categories of strategic framing that emerged in the interviews and discuss the interaction between the themes of differential vulnerability and frame construction.
The Need for a Time Structure
One of the stressors that most consistently came up in my interviews was the need

12 for a time structure. Sixteen out of the 20 participants referred to difficulties with lacking a time structure, four simply saying they were bored and the other 12 explicitly saying they missed having a routine.
One client in particular articulated his frustration in a manner that notably echoed Roche's (1990) theory regarding unemployment and time.
Bruce was a 54-year-old white male who had been unemployed for several months at the time of his interview. He had grown up in this city but had been living in
Tennessee for the past 25 years, working very successfully as a sub-contractor, until his financial circumstances had brought him back to the city a month and a half previously to fall on the generosity of old friends and family.
When I asked Bruce what it was like for him to not have a job to occupy his time, he was so eager to answer that he jumped in before I had even finished my question:
Bruce: “That’s… to be quite honest with you, I was just talkin’ about that this morning.… See, I’ve always considered that when you’re goin’ to work, you’re goin’ to work, and when you get off work then that starts your life, cause it takes that to make a life …. and that’s what I find… a lack of… ya know? Um… a timeframe. Ya know, I wake up and I (stammers) what’m I gonna do? I don’t have any schedule. Ya know? On the other hand, when you wake up, and you have a job, you have a timeframe of, I’m up, I have to be there.... everything changes once you’re not in that rigorous routine… and… I miss the routine.”
I found that differential vulnerability was amply applicable to the need for a time structure. For some clients, this lack of routine seemed to lead to a feeling of purposelessness or anomie. Other clients, however, were able to view their empty time in more positive terms. For example, despite Bruce's aforementioned difficulty with his

13 lack of a time structure, when I later asked him what he did do with his overabundance of spare time, his face took on a slightly dreamy smile:
Bruce: "Fixin’ to start fishin’. Got me a fishin’ license and I figure I can get 14 worms right down the road, 14 nightcrawlers for a dollar. I got a dollar .… ya know, it beats soap operas."
Bruce's outlook here was consistent with his rhetoric throughout the interview.
He maintained a decidedly hopeful outlook, despite his recent fall from the position of successful sub-contractor to that of unemployed couch-hopper. His notable determination leads me to further discussion of differential vulnerability.
Interplay of Self-Concept, Stigma, and Support
The interplay between self-concept, stigma, and support was easily visible in many of the interviews I conducted. One client, Sally, a 46-year-old white female who had quit her waitressing job 11 months prior to the interview and had been unable to find a new job ever since, illustrated this phenomenon in a number of ways.
Sally was a divorced mother of two boys. She had grown up in a neighboring city and had moved 19 years ago because, as she puts it, " it's a lot cheaper to live in [this city] than it is in [that city] ."
It quickly became clear in Sally's interview that her main stressor in unemployment was not her own financial difficulties. Her parents still lived nearby where she had grown up and were " pretty well set " financially, enabling them to help her out. While this was obviously beneficial to Sally, her perception of her family's expectations for her, coupled with her need to depend on them, was a source of emotional stress for her, which became clear when she was asked whether she felt there was a

14 stigma surrounding unemployment:
Sally: “Absolutely …. Yeah. Cause – cause I do have one sister that’s very judgmental and I think she feels like I’m just not even trying and that’s not true …. I would hope people would be more understanding. Um… but… my family personally…. has such high expectations of me, and that puts a lot of pressure on me. It makes me feel like a failure. (starting to cry) .… Cause I’m… the only one a my parents’ kids that’s… ya know, not marrried, raising kids on their own. And… unemployed. Um… so that’s two strikes right there. (sniffs)”
Sally's emotional discussion of her family's expectations of her demonstrated the way that her social background had helped to shape her self-concept and her socially defined needs. She mentioned off-hand during the interview that she hated the word
"welfare," and described her father as " very old school " when it came to work ethic and finances. She also said that she was the youngest of seven children and that she was the only one of her friends and family who was currently unemployed. While for some clients the role of "employee" had great importance to the self-concept and was a goal in and of itself, this role for Sally was more a means to achieving her larger goal of being someone her family would be proud of.
During her interview, Sally also displayed the use of "embracement," one of the three types of identity talk discussed by Snow and Anderson (1987) in their study of homeless people. Snow and Anderson (1987) used the term embracement to refer to "the verbal and expressive confirmation of one's acceptance of an attachment to the social identity associated with a general or specific role, a set of social relationships, or a particular ideology" (Snow and Anderson 1987: 1354). Embracement, therefore,

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"implies consistency between self-concept and imputed or structurally based social identities" (Snow and Anderson 1987: 1354).
Sally engaged in role embracement throughout her interview in how she spoke about being a single parent. The fact that she was a single mother was one of the first things I learned about her and it was something she referred back to on a number of occasions.
Sally's embracement of this particular role was interesting because singleparenthood was one of the reasons she gave for her belief that her parents were disappointed in her. However, embracing this role also seemed to give her determination; she repeatedly stressed that her kids came first. It appeared that while
Sally identified with some of the more negative stereotypes of being a single mom, specifically the financial difficulties that often accompany it, she also identified with the more positive stereotypes, like the willingness to do whatever it takes to care for one's children.
Sally's embracement of the single-mom role also bore similarities to Cohn's
(1978) findings that unemployed women with children fared better emotionally than unemployed women without children because of the availability of the role of motherhood to maintain their self-concept. This is an interesting finding considering that the financial stresses of unemployment are generally greater for someone with children than for someone who needs only to support herself.
Personal Control
My findings regarding the theme of personal control were mixed in their agreement with the literature. It was clear that, as found by Creed and Bartrum (2008),

16 not having a sense of personal control was extremely emotionally detrimental. One client in particular demonstrated the hopelessness that accompanied a lack of perceived control.
Jill was a white female in her mid-forties. She and her kids had moved to the city from her home state of Illinois seven years ago after her husband had died.
During her interview, Jill exhibited a very passive outlook on her life, and appeared to feel almost no control over what happened to her and her children. She began to display this passivity early on, saying that after her husband died, her brother had wanted to get her kids out of the neighborhood they had been living in, and she attributed her relocation almost entirely to her brother's decision, describing the entire process with an emphasis on his involvement. She also demonstrated this passivity when discussing her job search, saying that she had essentially left it up to the temp agencies to find jobs for her and that it had been a year since " they've been able to find me anything ."
The detrimental effects of Jill's perceived lack of control became abundantly clear later in the interview:
Jill :
“…And it doesn’t matter how much education you have anymore …. nobody out there has.. got security …. you give up like… trying anymore, ya know, the jobs are not there in the newspapers. They’re not out there on the job center. It’s like, where do you go? …. I mean hopefully within the next year, it gets better. But, the last year all I’ve seen is it just go down and down and down and… it’s scary to even watch the news anymore. It’s just, it’s so depressing …. I dunno how we’re gonna make it but …. I just hope this president can help us but I don’t see how. Because the last four couldn’t help us at all either.”
It appeared that Jill’s perception of a lack of control was largely a product of her

17 background and support system, as well as the residual grief of losing her husband, which also damaged her self-concept. She gave me the impression in a number of ways that the role of wife and mother was extremely important to her self-concept and identity, far more than the role of employee. She said repeatedly that life had been easier when she was married and she seemed to be at a complete loss without a husband in her life. She mentioned that she was engaged to a new fiance, and seemed to see him as her saving grace. This rhetoric, in conjunction with the way she talked about her dependence on her brother, made it seem that she was used to depending greatly on a support system, made up of her husband and other family. The fact that she had a support system, however, did not seem to improve her mindset, indicating that other factors had a more powerful effect on her outlook.
Jill did not engage in any of the types of identity talk I found other clients using, which may have been related to the hopelessness of her outlook. It is interesting to note that this represents yet another area in which she didn't seem to feel or take any control.
As I stated earlier, it was my analysis of personal control that led to my use of framing theory in interpreting my interviews. This was another area in which Jill exhibited no control. While I saw other clients make use of strategic frames to reinterpret their situations in a more positive light, Jill did not engage in any type of strategic framing, making it more difficult for her to interpret her difficult circumstances as anything other than devastating. I will now turn to some of the clients who did make obvious use of strategic framing, and discuss how the frames they constructed had an impact on their outlooks.
Faith as a Strategic Frame

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One strategic frame that emerged in my interviews was that of faith. Three of my participants demonstrated use of this frame, and these three individuals also demonstrated some of the most positive outlooks out of those I interviewed. I found this frame interesting in the context of personal control, and this was where my findings began to depart slightly from those of past literature. It seemed that individuals who used the faith frame to interpret and cope with their struggles mentally relinquished a considerable amount of control to the will of God. However, in doing so, they also reduced the scope of what they felt they had to have control over, making it seem much more manageable.
One client, Jack, demonstrated use of the faith frame very clearly. Jack was a 44year-old white male who had been living in the city since 2001 when he had moved a company there from the Chicago area. He had been fired from his last job five months before the interview and had been looking for work ever since. He mentioned early on in the interview that he was very involved with his church, and his use of the faith frame became apparent later in the interview when he was discussing his financial situation and the loss of his medical insurance, which made it impossible to pay for the prescriptions he and his wife needed:
Jack : “And a lot of it is uh… because I’ve been diagnosed bipolar, she’s been diagnosed bipolar, and we both snapped when we came off of it [the medicine]. We literally snapped. Ya know we started drinking, we drank for like two months. Ya know.
And then reality set in, ya know? And… that’s no way to live, ya know?.... We’ll figure it out. Always do, ya know? It’s… it’s like… God’s not up in heaven twiddling his thumbs… wondering what… what’s he gonna do to help somebody out or what’s gonna happen next. He already knows, ya know …. And that’s… that’s where I’ve had to come..

19 in my life. Is realize that.. that He’s not trippin’. He… ya know… up there..ooh pacin’ the floor, ya know?.... No! He a’int and… ya know, I believe in faith, I believe if we have faith we just… do the right thing. Take care of what we need to do… and things’ll work out. Just don’t get bent outta shape in the meanwhile, right?”
In framing his situation this way, Jack was able to reduce what he felt he needed to have control over to simply doing "the right thing," and dealing with problems one step at a time. It seemed that Jack was able to feel more in control by acknowledging the fact that there were a lot of things that he didn't have control over. It was clear from his rhetoric throughout the interview that this strategy greatly improved his outlook, allowing him to deal with each day as it came. His use of a strategic frame also demonstrated that he had assumed control over his own outlook, in contrast to Jill's passivity, and this controlled way of looking at things was a central factor in his positivity.
Jack did not mention any family besides his wife during his interview, but he said that he had a very solid support network among the friends he had made through church.
Because the network he talked about was one that he had adopted by choice, it is difficult to know what hand his background had had in shaping his self-concept, but this chosen support network obviously had a great effect on him. He said was able to talk to his church friends about what was going on in his life, which he found very helpful.
Going to church and maintaining a network there also seemed to provide Jack with an alternate role to turn to in the absence of employment, similar to Sally's alternate role of "single mother." Jack mentioned early on that he was " used to earnin' " and that not doing so was beginning to get to him personally. Knowing that he had a place to fill at his church seemed to alleviate some of his difficulty with losing the role of employee,

20 as did having the goal of living his life the way God would want him to.
Overall, for Jack and for other clients, faith manifested itself as what could be called a "master frame." Jack's faith influenced his view of all aspects of his life, allowing him to find a positive side to many of his struggles, and cultivating a hopeful and determined outlook.
Another client’s use of the faith frame struck me in how it interacted with the symbolic interactionist themes of differential vulnerability. The client was Will, a black male in his fifties. Will had been living in the city for the past 18 years and had moved there purely for a change of scenery. He had graduated from high school in Chicago and had received training in carpentry, house-painting, concrete formation, and some automechanics. Despite the number of skills Will had been trained in, he said that it had been years since he had had steady employment, and that he mostly survived by finding temporary work with construction teams and junkyards, although it had been a few months since he had been able to find even temporary employment.
Will was in a rather desperate position when I interviewed him, saying that he only had 18 cents left in his pocket and wasn't sure if he even had enough gas in his car to get home from the food pantry. He told me that his financial strain was taking an emotional toll on him, but later mentioned that having faith and attending church was what kept him going:
Will :
“I have to go to church. For my bein’. For my safety. Ya know? That keeps me intact. Cause I know in heaven there’s a higher power, so… me goin’ to church keeps me intact with the world and… keeps me outta a lotta nonsense, ya know? Because
I have that over my head and I do…. have a standing, even though I mighta had a case

21 almost nine years ago. That – that still didn’t interrupt the people that I know …. Yeah I just deal with it …. that’s one thing about bein’ spiritual is that what keeps me strong.
Just stay in the church and I know one day it’s just gonna lighten up …. I can’t say when, but I know it’s gonna lighten up…. And I keep goin' on, every time I get in a depressed mood, somebody come around the corner, seems like they got a 50, 40 buck – 40 dollar job for me to do.”
As was the case with Jack, Will took comfort in reducing the scope of what he needed to have control over, having faith that if he stayed on the right track and kept going to church, things would work out for him. Will also placed huge importance on the social network he had developed through church. Not only did he look to them as a source of job opportunities, their opinion and expectations of him contributed to his keeping himself out of trouble. The expectations of his network at church seemed to shape his socially defined needs, providing him with the role of "church member" and the goal of maintaining fellow members' opinions of him. This was of particular importance for Will because he had been on the wrong side of the law in the past. He referred to his past conviction a number of times, saying that it interfered with his ability to get jobs for which he felt he was amply qualified. He also expressed his temptation to once again resort to illegal behaviors, saying that he could " just sell a little pot " to dig himself out of his financial hole, but his faith and his desire to maintain a good standing at his church kept him from straying back onto that path.
In addition to his use of strategic framing, Will engaged in two of the types of identity talk identified by Snow and Anderson (1987). The first type he used was
"distancing," or more specifically "associational distancing." Snow and Anderson (1987)

22 stated that "one's claim to a particular self is partly contingent on the imputed social identities of one's associates, meaning that claims to a particular identity depend in part
'on one's ability to manage his image by drawing distinctions between himself and others he does not want to be associated with'" (Anderson 1976: 214 in Snow and Anderson
1987: 1349). Will made use of this strategy when he talked about utilizing the services at the food pantry:
Will : "Then you got people, some people, that just go for greed, they come in
'cause they can get stuff, they come in to get it just 'cause they can get it. That's not right, ya know, you shouldn't do it for that purpose. Do it for a purpose when you need it. And like I said, at my point right now I need ."
By differentiating himself from the clients he saw as abusing the pantry’s generosity, Will established his own identity as a morally upstanding person. This identity talk was consistent with the role of "church member" previously identified as one of his goals.
The second type of identity talk Will used, "fictive storytelling," or more specifically "fantasizing," was defined by Snow and Anderson (1987) as involving
"fanciful constructions that place the narrator in positively framed situations that seem distantly removed from, if at all connected to, his past or present" (Snow and Anderson
1987: 1360). In Snow and Anderson's (1987) research, they found that fantasizing among the homeless people they studied frequently involved business schemes that would allow the narrator to be self-employed, and this was how Will's fantasizing manifested itself as well:
Will :
“…I have a idea that maybe… I can start up a window-washing business as

23
I did before …. and I think the window-washin' business in my situation would probably turn out real good …. Because um… it’s self-employed… and you figure if you can come and you can wash a set a windows around the building, you can make anywhere between
30, 40, 50 bucks. And if I can knock out 'bout three or four a them a day… that’s pretty much a good earned pay if you was workin' on the job …. That’d put me back on the market.”
While this business scheme was not beyond the realm of possibility further down the line, it was not immediately feasible because of the start-up costs he would need to cover. However, simply the act of verbalizing this plan seemed to lessen the tone of desperation Will's voice had taken on as he described his financial struggles.
Until now I have discussed strategic framing almost entirely in the context of personal control and faith. Faith was the first way I saw framing theory emerge, but as I did my secondary coding, I found the use of frames emerging more subtly in other areas.
One example in particular was in clients' discussions of how they had experienced the process of utilizing services at the food pantry, both initially and over time.
Framing Institutional Support
The process of seeking assistance from a social service agency is an experience that differs greatly from person to person. I asked every client I interviewed how long they had been using the food pantry’s services, what the experience had been like the first time they came, and if and how the experience had changed as they continued using services. As I expected, the responses varied, with one of the main factors being the client's background (whether they had grown up accustomed to using food pantries), and by extension the amount of stigma they perceived surrounding the use of food pantries.

24
As I coded clients' responses, I found that the manner in which a client framed the experience of seeking help often offered a window into the frames they used to interpret and navigate other aspects of their situation and their life.
One client whose response stood out in this way was Barry. Barry was a 43-yearold white male with an associate's degree in mechanical engineering. He had originally grown up in the city but had been moving around the country until four years ago when he had gotten custody of his son and moved back to be near family. He had been working in his field until seven months before the interview, when business had slowed to the point where there was no work for him to do.
Barry had a markedly positive frame when discussing his first visit to the pantry:
Barry :
“Well just… I was thankful that places like this was here …. Ya know,
‘cause when people really truly need the help, it’s a – a blessing that you can’t really describe, ya know what I mean?.... and especially if you’ve never had to – to really struggle …. Ya know, you’re depressed ‘cause you’re in a situation where it’s bleak, ya know? But yet you’re joyful to know that there’s caring people out there, ‘cause you don’t really see it when you’re workin’ and everything’s goin’ well, you don’t really …. acknowledge that that’s goin’ on around you ‘cause you’re – you’re in your own world.
But when you get to this situation and you see there’s actually people bringing food and clothes, well then you’re like, oh man I actually do appreciate the fact that there’s people that’s giving and caring enough to do that when I need it. So when I get back on my feet,
I’m gonna do the same thing, I’m gonna, ya know, give again.”
Barry saw this experience as opening his eyes to both the struggles and the kindheartedness of others, and it made him resolve to help those in need once he was able.

25
The frame driving Barry’s positive view of this situation seemed to be that of parenting.
Throughout the interview, Barry talked about his situation almost entirely in the context of how it affected his son, and referred to his son’s well-being as his “ number one concern
.” While the need to care for his son was obviously a source of stress, it also seemed to alleviate feelings of stigmatization. He saw his actions as necessary to care for his son, which caused his feelings of gratitude to overwhelm any discomfort he may have felt coming to the food pantry. Focusing on the "single parent" role seemed to fulfill
Barry's need for a meangingful role in the same way that it did for Sally, also giving him the determination to push through a difficult situation.
One client, Christine, a 21-year-old white female with a ninth grade education, had a unique and less positive way of framing the experience of seeking institutional support. Christine had been born and raised in the city, and had grown up coming to this food pantry for services. She was the mother of a two-year-old boy and had been unemployed for four months at the time of her interview.
Although Christine had been coming to the pantry throughout her life, she made a clear distinction between those past experiences and the first time she came in on her own as an adult:
Christine :
“I mean, the first time when I was pregnant it kinda scared me a little bit, I was like, dang, am I gonna have to… struggle like this, ya know, for my kid, ‘cause I been through it with my mom. I’d rather go to a grocery store but every little bit helps when you can’t go to a grocery store so, it’s nice. It’s freaky your first time like, man is this real but…”
Christine seemed to view the experience as symbolic of a lifestyle she did not

26 want to emulate. She had a large family network in the city and most of them had grown up poor and stayed poor, which was a pattern she wanted to break. This large support network was also beneficial for her, however. Family gatherings helped alleviate boredom by giving her a way to fill her overabundance of spare time, and the fact that the rest of her family was also unemployed and struggling financially meant that the things they did together, like having cookouts in the park, didn’t require spending much money.
Overall, while Christine did not seem to have an overly negative outlook, she was not happy with her current path. She seemed ready for a change, a fact that emerged when she described her negative view of the city’s future:
Christine :
“The surrounding areas might [bounce back] but not [this place] ….
[this place] is for retired people and they’re so tryin' to make it like that, I mean, just look around…. where to go for kids, parks, that’s all we have for kids…. You go to
[neighboring city] at least you got ChuckECheese ya know, or you got a few other things up there you can do, but [this city].. there’s no hope for [this place]. There’s barely no jobs here now. I imagine five years from now, this’ll be all old people or people on their way to retirement. All anywhere from… 47 and younger I don’t think you're going to find too many people…. (laughs) [this city]’s goin' nowhere.”
Interestingly, her negative feelings about her hometown seemed to be part of a strategic frame; by viewing her struggles as tied to the place she had grown up in, she was able to have hope about her own future if she could simply get " the hell up outta here ." She mentioned that she would be going to Mississippi later in the summer and that she was seriously debating about whether to come back afterwards. She said that there would be more opportunities there for her and generally seemed hopeful about a future

27 away from her hometown.
This frame of focusing on a specific goal bore similarities to the frame of faith in that it reduced the scope of what Christine felt she needed to have control over. She mentally connected a better life with getting out of her hometown, allowing her to focus on one particular aspect of her life rather than being overwhelmed with trying to control everything.
Conclusions
I was able to identify three basic categories for the strategic framing I saw in my interviews. The first category was “faith,” illustrated in my interviews with Jack and
Will. The second was “focusing on a specific goal,” seen in my interview with Christine.
The third was “embracement of a particular role or identity,” seen in my interviews with
Sally and Barry. I saw 14 out of the 20 participants use rhetoric that fit into one or more of these categories. (Insert Figure II about here) The other six clients did not exhibit any identifiable strategic framing, although it is possible that they were using mental coping strategies that did not emerge in my interviews.
The most important factors in producing a positive outlook seemed to be, first, finding a meaningful identity, and second, perceiving a manageable course of action.
The clients who had the most positive outlooks had been able to construct frames that allowed them to do both of these things, which was particularly true of those who used the faith frame. Finding a meaningful identity seemed to be the more important of these two factors; even individuals who valued the role of employee managed to have a positive outlook if they were able to find an alternate role that they saw as worthwhile.

28
The strategic framing of many of the more positive clients often ran in parallel with some form of identity talk, which served to reinforce their frames. My findings here are in keeping with all the literature I have referenced regarding the self-concept.
Perceiving a manageable course of action was mostly beneficial in the increased personal control it allowed the individual to feel. This supports Creed and Bartrum
(2008) in their findings that personal control moderates the negative psychosocial effects of unemployment, but it should be noted that in many cases the increase in perceived control was a result of focusing on one particular aspect of life rather than trying to control all the factors.
As stated earlier, an individual constructs frames using past knowledge and socialization. This was apparent in my interviews. The type of frame a participant used was generally affected by his or her background and/or social network, although the effect seemed to go both ways in some cases, as when participants using the faith frame established their social network in the church. My interviews clearly illustrated that different participants had different social needs, shaped in large part by their background, and these needs in turn shaped the type of frame they constructed.
My findings are obviously based on a limited number of observations collected mainly on the basis of availability, and therefore require further investigation before drawing any firm conclusions. They do, however, have implications about the need to consider the agency of an individual when studying differential vulnerability to the psychosocial effects of unemployment. While the themes I found in past studies of unemployment clearly have a significant effect on differential vulnerability, it is also clear that an individual can reduce her own vulnerability by manipulating her

29 interpretation of her situation. This also raises the question of why some individuals are so inclined to cope strategically with their struggles in this way, while others do so to a lesser extent or not at all. This issue deserves further attention.
These findings have possible implications for social service agencies that provide any form of counseling to unemployed individuals. First of all, it is clear that different clients will struggle with different aspects of unemployment and will require different things from a social service agency. Secondly, while it would be impossible for a couselor to construct a strategic frame for a client, it would be helpful to listen for any strategic framing and to reinforce these positive frames. It may also be possible to help a client perceive a manageable course of action by helping him to focus on one step at a time, potentially increasing his perception of control and mental well-being.
References:
Bagnato, Luigi. 2001. “The Beloit Chronicles.” Beloit, WI: Beloit Corporation History
Page. Retrieved July 7, 2009 ( http://paperindustryweb.com/chron1.htm
).
Cohn, Richard M. 1978. “The Effect of Employment Status Change on Self-Attitudes.”
Social Psychology 41(2): 81-93. (Retrieved from JSTOR on March 3, 2009.)
Cole, Matthew. 2007. “Re-Thinking Unemployment: A Challenge to the Legacy of
Jahoda et al.”
Sociology 41(6): 1133-1149. (Retrieved from Sage Journals Online on April 10, 2009.)
Creed, Peter A. and Dee A. Bartrum. 2008. “Personal Control as a Mediator and
Moderator Between Life Strains and Psychological Well-Being in the
Unemployed.”
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 38(2): 460-481. (Retrieved

30 from Synergy Blackwell Journals on April 14, 2009.)
Figueira-McDonough, Josefina. 1978. “Mental Health among Unemployed Detroiters.”
The Social Service Review 52(3): 383-399. (Retrieved from JSTOR on February
22, 2009.)
Hamilton, V. Lee, Clifford L. Broman, William S. Hoffman, and Deborah S. Renner.
1990. “Hard Times and Vulnerable People: Initial Effects of Plant Closing on
Autoworkers’ Mental Health.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 31(2): 123-
140. (Retrieved from JSTOR on April 1, 2009.)
Johnston, Hank. 2005. “Comparative Frame Analysis.” Pp. 237-260 in
Frames of
Protest: Social Movements and the Framing Perspective , edited by John A.
Noakes and Hank Johnston. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Noakes, John A. and Hank Johnston. 2005. “Frames of Protest: A Road Map to
Perspective.” Pp. 1-32 in
Frames of Protest: Social Movements and the Framing
Perspective , edited by John A. Noakes and Hank Johnston. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Nordenmark, Mikael and Mattias Strandh. 1999. “Towards a Sociological Understanding of Mental Well-Being Among the Unemployed: The Role of Economic and
Psychosocial Factors.”
Sociology 33(3): 577-597. (Retrieved from Cambridge
University Press Journals Complete on March 7, 2009.)
Payne, Roy L. and J. Graham Jones. 1987. “The Effects of Long-Term Unemployment on
Attitudes to Employment.”
Journal of Occupational Behaviour 8(4): 351-358.
(Retrieved from JSTOR on March 22, 2009.)
Roche, Maurice. 1990. “Time and Unemployment.”
Human Studies 13(1): 73-96.

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(Retrieved from JSTOR on June 30, 2009.)
Snow, David A. and Leon Anderson. 1987. “Identity Work Among the Homeless: The
Verbal Construction and Avowal of Personal Identities.”
The American Journal of
Sociology 92(6): 1336-1371. (Retrieved from JSTOR on July 1, 2009.)
Turner, J. Blake. 1995. “Economic Context and the Health Effects of Unemployment.”
Journal of Health and Social Behavior 36(3): 213-229. (Retrieved from JSTOR on March 22, 2009.)

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Appendix
Figure I – Participant Information
Participant* Age Race
F1: Mary 41
Level of Education Approximate Length of Unemployment
Caucasian Ninth grade 3 years
F2: Debra 52
F3: Arlene 42
M1: Jim 45
M2: Bruce 54
M3: George 45
Caucasian
Caucasian
Eleventh grade
GED
Caucasian College degree
Caucasian High school diploma, some college classes
Caucasian High school diploma, technical college
8 years
6 months
7 months
Several months
5 months
M4: Jack 44
M5: Ben 33
F4: Jill
F5: Sally
M6: Mark
40s – exact age not known
46
50
F6: Rose 31
F7: Anna 60
M7: Will 50s – exact age not known
38 F8:
Suzanne
F9:
Christine
21
Caucasian High school diploma 5 months
Caucasian Ninth grade 7 months
1 year Caucasian High school diploma, a few college classes
Caucasian High school diploma, medical assistant degree
11 months
1 month Caucasian High school diploma, 1 year of college
Caucasian Eleventh grade
Caucasian Tenth grade
African-
American
Caucasian
High school diploma, trade programs
Caucasian Twelfth grade
Ninth grade
3 years
10 years
3 months
10 months
4 months
F10: Jess
M8: Barry
35
43
African-
American
High school diploma 1 month
Caucasian High school diploma, associate’s degree
7 months
M9: Paul
F11: Lila
36
54
Caucasian High school diploma 1 months
African-
American
High school diploma, a few college classes
Several months
*Participants are identified by pseudonyms to protect confidentiality.

Mark
Rose
Anna
Will
Suzanne
Christine
Jess
Barry
Paul
Lila
Bruce
George
Jack
Ben
Jill
Sally
Figure II – Use of Framing Among Participants
“1” indicates use of frame
“0” indicate no use of frame
Participant Faith Specific Goal
Mary
Debra
0
0
0
0
Arlene
Jim
0
1
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
1
1
0
Role or Identity
0
1
33