L3 Life Course Perspective

Question 1

what is the life course theory? (and levels?)

Answer 1

• framework for understanding individual lives in their social and historical context
• individual level: how each life stage influences later ones
• social and historical level: contextual circumstances surrounding an individuals life

Question 2

what are life transitions?

Answer 2

changes in roles and statuses that represent a distinct departure from prior roles and statuses
timing is socially constructed: normative (expected) and non-normative (unexpected)

Question 3

what are life trajectories?

Answer 3

• long-term life path or direction
• typically defined by age parameters and social expectations
• can be stable or unstable at different times
• shaped by life transitions which reinforce or change trajectory

Question 4

what are life events?

Answer 4

• a significant occurrence involving a relatively abrupt change that may produce serious and long-lasting effects
• the happening/event itself (not the life transition that will occur)
• can be associated with stress: often measured by scales/inventories; even good things are stressful

Question 5

what are turning points? and what are the 5 turning point conditions?

Answer 5

• major and lasting changing in life trajectory
• a transition can become a turning point under five conditions:
  1. when the transition occurs simultaneously with a crisis or is followed by a crisis
  2. when the transition involves family conflict over the needs and wants of individuals and the greater good of the family unit
  3. when the transition is ‘off-time’, meaning that it does not occur at the typical stage in life
  4. when the transition is followed by unforeseen negative consequences
  5. when the transition requires exceptional social adjustments

Question 6

describe human agency in making choices & bandura’s three modes of human agency

Answer 6

• humans are agentic (capable of intentionally influencing their own functioning and circumstances)
• making choices to deal with our circumstances
• we balance individual agency. with linked lives and social structures (choose what we think is best in a particular circumstance)
• bandura’s three modes of human agency acknowledges context:
  1. personal agency- individual using personal influence
  2. proxy agency- influence others with more resources to act
  3. collective agency- acting together

Question 7

what are the two other themes added later

Answer 7

• diversity in life choices trajectory
• risk and protection over the life course
  (see notes)

Question 8

what are social determinants of health

Answer 8

• a determinant of health is a factor or characteristics that brings about a change in health, either for the better or for the worse
• factors that raise or lower the level or health in a population or individual
• the economic, social and cultural factors that directly and indirectly influence individual and population health

social determinants of health (WHO): the social gradient, stress, work, unemployment, social support, addiction, food, transport, early life, social exclusion