INDIVIDUALIZATION AS THE PATTERN OF CULTURE, PROCESS AND IDEOLOGY

The subject of this article is the concept of individualization, widely present in sociological literature as a common diagnosis of contemporary 'status quo'. This view is analysed here not only in terms of society's disintegration (decay?) and the inevitable opposition between the society and the individual, but also multiplication of possible schemes of acting. Basing on Jean-Claude Kaufmann's notion of dialectical square, the authoress considers the individual and the society as ideal types, drawing attention to inextricably related changes of both the individual and the society. The analysis of woman's magazines helps to establish how the new patterns of ordering experience are created and how they influence the performance of social roles and mutual relations. This field of research seems attractive since both the context of transformation and the situation of women most vividly demonstrate tensions between the modern and postmodern patterns of behavior and reveal paradoxes of the process of individualization. By making the individual the focal point of attention it makes the increasingly complex relations with other individuals its primary concern.