@Elder1994

(1994) - Glen H. Elder

Journal: Social Psychology Quarterly
Link:: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2786971?origin=crossref
DOI:: 10.2307/2786971
Links::
Tags:: #paper #LifeCourse #SocialTheory
Cite Key:: [@Elder1994]

Abstract

The life course has emerged over the past 30 years as a major research paradigm. Distinctive themes include the relation between human lives and a changing society, the timing of lives, linked or interdependent lives, and human agency. Two lines of research converged in the formation of this paradigm during the 1960s; one was associated with an older "social relationship" tradition that featured intergenerational studies, and the other with more contemporary thinking about age. The emergence of a life course paradigm has been coupled with a notable decline in socialization as a research framework and with its incorporation by other theories. Also, the jield has seen an expanding interest in how social change alters people's lives, an enduring perspective of sociological social psychology.

Notes

“Distinctive themes include the relation between human lives and a changing society, the timing of lives, linked or interdependent lives, and human agency.” (Elder, 1994, p. 3) Human lives and a changing society - good description

“With this change has come an appreciation for "the long way" of thinking about human personality and its social pathways in changing societies.” (Elder, 1994, p. 3)

“Mills's (1959, p. 149) provocative work, The Sociological Imagination, had just proposed an orienting concept in the behavioral sciences-in his words, "the study of biography, of history, and of the problems of their intersection within social structure.” (Elder, 1994, p. 3)

“Overall the life course can be viewed as a multilevel phenomenon, ranging from structured pathways through social institutions and organizations to the social trajectories of individuals and their developmental pathways.” (Elder, 1994, p. 4)

“historical change and life experience (Elder 1974).” (Elder, 1994, p. 4)

“In concept, the life course generally refers to the interweave of age-graded trajectories, such as work careers and family pathways, that are subject to changing conditions and future options, and to short-term transitions ranging from leaving school to retirement (Elder 1985). Transitions are always embedded in trajectories that give them distinctive form and meaning.” (Elder, 1994, p. 4)

“With an eye to the full life course, analysis is sensitive to the consequences of early transitions for later experiences and events” (Elder, 1994, p. 4)

“The later years of aging cannot be understood in depth without knowledge of the prior life course.” (Elder, 1994, p. 4)

“four themes deserve special note as central to the life course paradigm: the interplay of human lives and historical times, the timing of lives, linked or interdependent lives, and human agency in choice making” (Elder, 1994, p. 4)

“Especially in rapidly changing societies, differences in birth year expose individuals to different historical worlds, with their constraints and options. Individual life courses may well reflect these different times. Historical effects on the life course take the form of a cohort effect in which social change differentiates the life patterns of successive cohorts” (Elder, 1994, p. 4)

“Birth” (Elder, 1994, p. 4)

“year and cohort membership, however, are merely a proxy for exposure to historical change” (Elder, 1994, p. 5)

“By placing people in birth cohorts that permit analyses of historical effects, the theory advanced a view of age-graded life patterns embedded in cultures, institutions, and social structures, and responsive to social change” (Elder, 1994, p. 6)

“In these brief paragraphs I have argued that the demise of socialization as a major research paradigm had much to do with its limitations in addressing questions that focused increasingly on problems of life span continuity and change.” (Elder, 1994, p. 8)