what is meant by life course theory

What is life course theory example?

The life course approach examines an individual's life history and investigates, for example, how early events influenced future decisions and events such as marriage and divorce, engagement in crime, or disease incidence.

What does life course theory hope to explain?

Life course theory (LCT) is an emerging interdisciplinary theory that seeks to understand the multiple factors that shape people's lives from birth to death, placing individual and family development in cultural and historical contexts.Aug 12, 2014

What is the life course theory in criminology?

Life course theories represent an integrated approach to explaining criminality, and accept that multiple social, personal, economic, and other factors influence crime.Jan 12, 2022

What are the three themes of the life course perspective?

Three important themes of the life course perspective—timing of lives, diversity in life course trajectories, and human agency—are particularly useful for engaging diverse individuals and social groups.

What is life course theory?

Life course theory, more commonly termed the life course perspective, refers to a multidisciplinary paradigm for the study of people's lives, structural contexts, and social change. This approach encompasses ideas and observations from an array of disciplines, notably history, sociology, demography, developmental psychology, biology, and economics. In particular, it directs attention to the powerful connection between individual lives and the historical and socioeconomic context in which these lives unfold. As a concept, a life course is defined as "a sequence of socially defined events and roles that the individual enacts over time" (Giele and Elder 1998, p. 22). These events and roles do not necessarily proceed in a given sequence, but rather constitute the sum total of the person's actual experience. Thus the concept of life course implies age-differentiated social phenomena distinct from uniform life-cycle stages and the life span. Life span refers to duration of life and characteristics that are closely related to age but that vary little across time and place.

What is life course perspective?

The life course perspective has been applied to several areas of family inquiry in North America (particularly in the United States ), as well as inter-nationally. Although space limitations do not permit full coverage of this vast body of work, several studies are highlighted to illustrate recent applications of the approach. In the United States, researchers have adopted this framework to investigate: men's housework (Coltrane and Ishii-Kuntz 1992); the timing of marriage and military service (Call and Teachman 1996); work history and timing of marriage (Pittman and Blanchard 1996); families, delinquency and crime (Sampson and Laub 1993) as well as many other substantive areas (Price et al. 2000).

Why is the life course perspective important?

During this decade, rapid social change and population aging drew attention to historical influences and to the complexity of processes underlying family change and continuity. Advances in statistical techniques also prompted the continued growth of life course studies, including the creation of new methodologies to analyze longitudinal data.

How does the past shape the future?

How the past shapes the future. Finally, another hallmark of this perspective is that early life course decisions, opportunities, and conditions affect later outcomes. The past, therefore, has the potential to shape the present and the future, which can be envisioned as a ripple or domino effect.

What is the meaning of life span?

Life span refers to duration of life and characteristics that are closely related to age but that vary little across time and place. In contrast, the life course perspective elaborates the importance of time, context, process, and meaning on human development and family life (Bengtson and Allen 1993).

What are the principles of life course?

They include: (1) socio-historical and geographical location; (2) timing of lives; (3) heterogeneity or variability; (4) "linked lives" and social ties to others; (5) human agency and personal control; and (6) how the past shapes the future.

What are the three types of time?

Three types of time are central to a life course perspective: individual time, generational time, and historical time (Price, McKenry, and Murphy 2000). Individual or ontogenetic time refers to chronological age.

Overview

Life course theory (LCT) is an emerging interdisciplinary theory that seeks to understand the multiple factors that shape people’s lives from birth to death, placing individual and family development in cultural and historical contexts.

Introduction

Life course theory (LCT) looks at how chronological age, relationships, common life transitions, life events, social change, and human agency shape people’s lives from...

What is life course theory?

course perspective, refers to a multidisciplinary. paradigm for the study of people’s lives, structural. contexts, and social change. This approach en-. compasses ideas and observations from an array of. disciplines, notably history, sociology, demogra-.

What are transitional events?

transitional events (for example, when to marry or. to have children). Research conducted in the 1970s. and 1980s continued to incorporate these themes, as well as to focus attention on historical changes. in life patterns, the consequences of life course ex-. periences (such as the Great Depression) on sub-.

What is life course perspective?

Lesson Summary. Life course perspective is a theory used in the social sciences that looks at how a person grows and changes over time. Researchers using this theory may study a cohort, or a group of people born during a particular timeframe who've experienced similar historical events.

What is a transition in life?

A transition occurs when there is movement from one role or status to another over time. This transition to having less money occurred because of the life event of losing a job. Getting married, getting divorced, a loved one passing away, and having a baby, along with many other changes, are all considered life events.

Why is it so hard to say anything about yourself?

It would probably be hard to say very much about yourself because eventually you would want to bring up something from your past experience that has shaped you as a person. The life course perspective, also known as life course theory, is used in the social sciences to help understand human development.

What happened before the stock market crash?

For instance, prior to the stock market crash of 1929, a family might have had enough money for meals, clothing, transportation, and health care - on a trajectory that included a stable education for the children. In the years following the crash, this trajectory might have changed drastically.

What is a turning point in life?

This kind of transition is known as a turning point, a period of time that alters the life course trajectory. A turning point can include negative experiences, such as college savings being drained, as well as positive experiences, such as a renewed appreciation for the support of those helping to deal with the crisis.

What are some examples of transitions?

Examples of life events include getting married, getting divorced, a loved one passing away, and having a baby, along with many other changes.

What was it like to grow up during the Great Depression?

What was it like to grow up during the Great Depression in the United States, a time in which an estimated one in four people in the workforce were unemployed? Profound changes in the economy affected just about everyone . For children, still in an early stage of development, the Depression shaped their lives to a great deal, affecting everything from the values they learned to whether they grew up with the basic necessities of life.

What is the life course approach?

The life course approach, also known as the life course perspective or life course theory, refers to an approach developed in the 1960s for analyzing people's lives within structural, social, and cultural contexts. The origins of this approach can be traced back to pioneering studies of the 1920s such as Thomas' ...

What are the five principles of life course?

theorized the life course as based on five key principles: life-span development, human agency, historical time and geographic place, timing of decisions, and linked lives.

What is the primary factor promoting standardization of the life course?

The primary factor promoting standardization of the life course was improvement in mortality rates brought about by the management of contagious and infectious diseases such as smallpox. A life course is defined as "a sequence of socially defined events and roles that the individual enacts over time".

What is the meaning of life span?

Life span refers to duration of life and characteristics that are closely related to age but that vary little across time and place. In contrast, the life course perspective elaborates the importance of time, context, process, and meaning on human development and family life (Bengtson and Allen 1993).

What is life course theory?

Life course theory, a sociological framework, was used to analyze the phenomenon of becoming a mother, with longitudinal narrative data from 34 women who gave birth prematurely after a high-risk pregnancy, and whose infant became medically fragile. Women faced challenges of mistimed birth and mothering a technologically-dependent infant.

What is social relations?

First, a social relations approach was used to examine the effects social structures such as marriage and family had on individuals. Subcategories of this approach include functionalism, exchange theory, and ecological systems theory.

How long does an infant survive after discharge?

Interviews were conducted at five time points: at study enrollment, which occurred once the infant was expected to survive for at least several months; 1 month after discharge home; and then at approximately 6, 12, and 16 months of age, corrected for prematurity.

What does it mean to be a mother?

Becoming a mother means moving from a known to an unknown reality (Mercer, 2004). The decision to become a mother is characterized by ambivalence, calculation of the timing of pregnancy, and determination of effects on significant relationships (Sevon, 2005).

What is informational technology?

Mothers frequently referred to informational technology (electronic fetal monitoring [EFM], ultrasonography, photography, infant monitors) and supportive technology (ventilators and feeding tubes). Both types of technology were simultaneously reassuring and confusing as meanings of these data were often ambiguous.

What is considered medically fragile?

Medically fragile refers to infants with life-threatening chronic illness who are, at least temporarily, technology-dependent, and who have health sequelae requiring extended hospitalization or frequent rehospitalization (Miles, Holditch-Davis, Burchinal, & Nelson, 1999).

What is life course?

( noun) The entirety of individual’s life from birth to death and the typical set of circumstances an individual experiences in a given society as they age.

When were baby boomers born?

To review facts well known to sociologists, the Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964.

Historical Development

Key Principles and Concepts

• Several fundamental principles characterize the life course approach. They include: (1) socio-historical and geographical location; (2) timing of lives; (3) heterogeneity or variability; (4) "linked lives" and social ties to others; (5) human agency and personal control; and (6) how the past shapes the future. Each of these tenets will be described...

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Selected Research Applications

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