Study title

Memories of Celebrating Birthdays 2023-2024

Dataset ID Number

FSD3973

Persistent identifiers

https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3973
https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd3973

Data Type

Qualitative

Authors

• Finnish Literature Society

Abstract

The data consists of responses to a writing collection organized by the Finnish Literature Society. In their writings, people share their memories of celebrating birthdays.

The call for writings provided respondents with several helpful questions to make writing easier. The questions asked, for example, how birthdays have been celebrated in the respondent's family and circle of friends, how the respondents have celebrated their birthdays throughout their life, how it feels to celebrate birthdays and be the center of attention, and how the respondent's attitude toward celebrating birthdays has changed with age. If the respondent did not celebrate birthdays, they were asked to explain why. Respondents were also asked to recall birthdays other than their own.

The respondent's gender, year of birth, occupation, and location were included as background information, if provided.

Keywords

Anniversaries; Ceremonies; Childhood; Customs and traditions; Families; Friends; Parties (social)

Topic Classification

• Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
• Leisure, tourism and sport (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Family life and marriage (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Series

Individual datasets

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Data Collector

• Finnish Literature Society. Archive

Collection Dates

2023-09-21 – 2024-05-31

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Finland

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

Open collection, no restrictions on target group

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Non-probability: Availability

Collection Mode

Self-administered writings and/or diaries: Web-based

Research Instrument

Data collection guidelines: Self-administered writings guide

Data Files

38 writings in odt format. Additionally, the data were organised into an easy to use HTML version and a CSV version.

Data File Language

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: Finnish.

Qualitative data are available in their original language only and are not translated.

Data Version

1.0

Completeness of Data and Restrictions

The names of the authors and any other direct identifiers have been removed from the texts in FSD. The authors' pseudonyms have been removed if they could possibly refer to real names. In addition, all direct and indirect identifiers referring to third parties have been removed. Also, some whole writings had to be exluded from archiving, because they included too many names and other identifiers of third parties. Anonymisation made by the FSD are indicated by [[double square brackets]].

The data archived in the FSD contains only those writings that the author has allowed to be archived also in the FSD. Any photographs that may have been submitted with the writings have not been archived in the FSD. Eight responses were removed entirely from the archived data set, because they contained a significant number of third-party names and other identifiers related to them. In addition, one response containing only background information and one text whose author imposed special conditions restricting the further use of their text were removed. All collected writings, includign those not archived to FSD, are available in the archives of the Finnish Literature Society (SKS).

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

Finnish Literature Society: Memories of Celebrating Birthdays 2023-2024 [dataset]. Data version 1.0 (2025-06-26). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd3973; URN: https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3973

Deposit Requirement

Notify FSD of all publications where you have used the data by sending the citation information to user-services.fsd@tuni.fi.

Special Terms and Conditions for Access

The data may contain identifiers that have not been anonymised (e.g. person names, information on place of residence, names of work places and such). When publishing quotations from the data, users need to consider very carefully in each specific case what information needs to be removed or altered according to research ethical guidelines.

Disclaimer

The original data creators and the archive bear no responsibility for any results or interpretations arising from the reuse of the data.

FSD has not been informed of any publications related to the data.