Life Course Theory Flashcards
Bernardi, Huinink, and Settersten 2019 – The Life Course Cube
Researchers need a tool to understand the complex connection between time, life domains, and levels (inner-individual, individual, and supra-individual). Important time concepts include path dependency, anticipation, and turning points.
Diewald and Mayer 2009 – Sociology of the Life course and Life Span Psychology
Sociology is interested in regularities surrounding social structures of historical time while psychologists look for regularities within individuals despite those variations. When considering how social networks influence life trajectories, psych people look at proximate groups (family, school, etc). Caspi and Moffit (1993) show psych tendencies shift with social structures. They end by showing examples that combine the two. Schoon (2006) shows that resilience predicts outcomes once controlling for a situation. Diewald (1989) showed that unemployment can lead to negative agency effects. “Structure within agency”
Elder 1975 – Age Differentiation and the Life Course
Three types of time: lifetime and its focus on the process of aging from birth to death, social time expressed in the age patterning of social roles, and historical time location of the individual in the historical process through cohort membership. Age heterogeneity refers to the variation in age categories across time, their expected social roles.
George 1993 – Sociological Perspectives on Life trajectories
Role theory can offer life course studies a fruitful outlet. Differentiates population and individual-level based studies on transitions. Population based studies average timing and sequences of transitions. Turnbull et al (1990) study the timing of mental illness diagnoses and later life outcomes. The earlier the diagnosis, the worse the outcomes. Cross fertilize stress, role, and life course perspectives.
Hitlin and Kirkpatrick Johnson 2015 – Reconceptualizing Agency within the LIfe Course
To what extent does agency drive life course chances? They use the Youth Development Study to test whether income, employment, happiness, self-esteem and mastery correlate with individual agency. Many significant effects indicate that individual perception is a powerful influencer of life outcomes. My only criticism is a reverse-causal trend. Negative people could have already had negative events, so they’re finding the remnants (research shows that perceptions change from experiences [Diewald 2006]).
Marshall, Martin, and McCullin 2016 – Interpretive Perspective on Aging
Interpretivists align themselves with Weber’s “Verstehende Soziologie”. How do people’s perceptions relate to social structure and social action? Quantitative data may still be used to measure how agency influences outcomes on a macro scale. Causality is reconsidered as the motivations people have for initiating social action, rather than an explicit mechanism permanent in its function.
Mayer 2004 – Whose Lives? How History, Societies, and Institutions Define and Shape Life Courses
Therea re four life course patterns over the past two centuries: traditional, industrial, fordist/welfare state, and post-fordist/postindustrial. Also, four nation state types: liberal, conservative, social democratic, and familistic. The history of life course studies starts with Mannheim and Thomas. Life course has been de-institutionalized, so individual agency functions within structures.
Mayer 2009 - New Directions in Life Course Research
Life course research has improved understanding of trajectories, cohort change, connection of domains, agency and outcomes, context-related outcomes, and a shift from curative to preventative policy interventions. Laub and Sampson (2003) propose earlier life course experiences are not SO influential for later life outcomes. Sudden system changes offer a great study site. Two mechanisms are focus of research: impact of earlier life events on later outcomes and the effect of cohorts on social change. Some methodological developments include: sequence analysis, growth curve models, age-period-cohort effects.
Neugarten, Moore, and Lowe 1965 – Age Norms, Age Constraints, and Adult Socialization
First to publish on age norms. Survey data of middle class people reveal that age nroms exist for common life course events (family, career, retirement) and people recognize a generalized other in these processes. Stringency increases with age. Women are more cognizant of age norms, likely due to high scoiaal control.
Riley 1987 – On the Significance of Age in Society
Discussion of aging, changing circumstances of aging, and the synchrony between these two. People age into roles, yet society alters the definition of what those age experiences offer. Therefore, studies must pay attention to cohort and period effects. She calls this again over the life course and age as a structural feature of any changing society or group. Their example is retirees and how previous generations of retirees had better economic conditions than the ones currently retiring (written in the late 80s).
