Journal Article10.1146/ANNUREV.SOC.26.1.667
Pathways to Adulthood in Changing Societies: Variability and Mechanisms in Life Course Perspective
TL;DR: The transition to adulthood has become a thriving area of research in life course studies as mentioned in this paper and a review is organized around two of the field's emerging themes: increasing variability in pathways to adult roles through historical time and a heightened sensitivity to transition behaviors as developmental processes.
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Abstract: The transition to adulthood has become a thriving area of research in life course studies. This review is organized around two of the field's emerging themes. The first theme is the increasing variability in pathways to adult roles through historical time. The second theme is a heightened sensitivity to transition behaviors as developmental processes. Accounts of such processes typically examine the active efforts of young people to shape their biographies or the socially structured opportunities and limitations that define pathways into adulthood. By joining these concepts, I suggest new lines of inquiry that focus on the interplay between agency and social structures in the shaping of lives.
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Citations
The Emergence and Development of Life Course Theory
Glen H. Elder,Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson,Robert Crosnoe +2 more
- 01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: The life histories and future trajectories of individuals and groups were largely neglected by early sociological research as discussed by the authors, and the life course perspective is perhaps the pre-eminent theoretical orientation in the study of lives.
Gender, Crime, and Desistance: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transformation
TL;DR: In this paper, a symbolic interactionist perspective on desistance is developed as a counterpoint to Sampson and Laub's theory of informal social control, and life history narratives are used to illustrate the perspective.
Gender inequalities in education.
TL;DR: The authors reviewed the empirical research and theoretical perspectives on gender inequalities in educational performance and attainment from early childhood to young adulthood and recommended three directions for future research: (a) interdisciplinary efforts to understand gender differences in cognitive development and noncognitive abilities in early childhood, (b) research on the structure and practices of schooling, and (c) analyses of how gender differences might amplify other kinds of inequalities, such as racial, ethnic, class, or nativity inequalities.
New Directions in Life Course Research
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report on trends in life course research by focusing on empirical studies published since the year 2000 and assess the overall development of the field, including the impact of institutional contexts on life courses, life courses under conditions of societal ruptures and health across the life course.
Identity and Agency in Emerging Adulthood: Two Developmental Routes in the Individualization Process.
TL;DR: The authors examined three psychological aspects of identity formation (style, status, and process) in relation to personal agency associated with the individualization process and found that higher levels of agency are positively related to exploration and flexible commitment, unrelated to conformity, and negatively related to avoidance.
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References
Change and constancy in developmental contexts
TL;DR: This article reviewed a set of conceptual distinctions that are well suited to the study of the dynamic properties of context and highlighted the importance of integrating the life course with behavioural genetics to determine more accurately the joint contributions of environments like the family and genotypes to development.
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Wartime in Men's Lives: A Comparative Study of American and Japanese Cohorts
Glen H. Elder,Yoriko Meguro +1 more
TL;DR: The authors used cohorts of American and Japanese men to study the long-term effects of conscription and war on their lives, and found that the effects of war and conscription on people's lives varied significantly over time.
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Changing Pathways to Attainment in Men's Lives: Historical Patterns of School, Work, and Social Class
TL;DR: This article examined a series of hypotheses that interrelate educational attainment with historical change, expansions and contractions in labor market sectors, and socioeconomic status through historical time, reflecting the progressive consolidation of the educational trajectory in the life course, as well as changing patterns of social class and the economy.
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