Family life cycle stages is a theoretical framework to describe the formation, maintenance, change, and dissolution of marital and family relations. The family life cycle stages perspective is probably the most famous part of family development theory (Rodgers & White, 1993 ). Evelyn Duvall’s ( 1962, p.
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.
The life course refers to the social phases we progress through, throughout our lives. Traditionally, these were seen as quite fixed, especially for women (who would be expected to be dependent on their parents until being married, at which point they would be dependent on their husbands and bear and rear children).
In addition to these principles, three key and related concepts — trajectory, transition, and turning point — are commonly used in life course research to describe human developmental phenomena. Trajectories are “paths of change in developmental processes” (Van Geert, 1994, p.
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.
The goal of Family Life Education (abbreviated FLE) is to teach these skill and knowledge areas to family members across the lifespan, and foster positive individual and family development so families can function optimally.
The objective of Family Life Education is to enrich and improve the quality of individual and family life." Parenting classes, pre-marriage education, marriage enrichment programs, and family financial planning courses are a few examples of this human development profession.
Family development theory focuses on the systematic and patterned changes experienced by families as they move through their life course. The term family as used here represents a social group containing at least one parent-child relationship. The family group is organized and governed by social norms.
The foundational concept of the framework is “activity”, which is understood as purposeful, transformative, and developing interaction between actors (“subjects”) and the world (“objects”). The framework was originally developed by the Russian psychologist Aleksei Leontiev (footnote 1) (Leontiev 1978; Leontiev 1981).
childhood.old age.emerging adulthood.adolescence.
2. The life course perspective recognizes the influence of historical changes on human behavior. 3. The life course perspective recognizes the importance of timing of lives not just in terms of chronological age, but also in terms of biological age, psychological age, social age, and spiri- tual age.
When the concept was first developed in the 1960s, the life course perspective hinged upon the rationalization of the human experience into structural, cultural and social contexts, pinpointing the societal cause for such cultural norms as marrying young or likelihood to commit a crime.
Life theory, though, relies on the intersection of these social factors of influence with the historical factor of moving through time, paired against personal development as an individual and the life-changing events that caused that growth.
The life course perspective is a sociological way of defining the process of life through the context of a culturally defined sequence of age categories that people are normally expected to pass through as they progress from birth to death.
Included in the cultural conceptions of the life course is some idea of how long people are expected to live and ideas about what constitutes “premature” or “untimely” death as well as the notion of living a full life — when and who to marry, and even how susceptible the culture is to infectious diseases. The events of one's life, ...
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-.
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.
to have children). Research conducted in the 1970s
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.
Life course theory has five distinct principles: (a) time and place; (b) life-span development; (c) timing; (d) agency; and (e) linked lives. We used these principles to examine and explain high-risk pregnancy, its premature conclusion, and subsequent mothering of medically fragile preterm infants.
Using a life course perspective in this study, we focused on becoming a mother as an aspect of adult development within a sociohistorical context characterized by highly medicalized obstetric and neonatal care in the U.S. in the latter decades of the 20thcentury and early 21stcentury. Although commonly used in nursing literature, contexthas often been defined narrowly as the setting for practice (e.g. Swanson’s 1990phenomenology of providing care in the NICU) or the patient’s immediate social situation (e.g. Hagren, Pettersen, Severinsson, Lutzen & Clyne’s 2005description of the lives of patients receiving hemodialysis). We examined ambiguous and liminal aspects of becoming a mother to a medically fragile preterm infant, identifying significant turning points at which women moved from a liminal state to explicit identification as mother of this infant.
Linked lives refers to an integration of social relationships extending beyond formal family ties, such as friends, neighbors, and work colleagues who provide a “distinct orienting context” (Marshall & Mueller, p.11). Social linkages shape how individuals interpret life events. People vary widely in the manner and degree in which they integrate social norms, relationships, and institutions. Integration may be discontinuous or disrupted under certain circumstances (Giele & Elder, 1998). The lives of mother and infant are uniquely linked, shaping and being shaped by each other in the continuing process of human development. However, becoming a mother of a medically fragile preterm infant is complicated by the unexpected and unknown. The discontinuous or disrupted nature of this mistimed biological event may affect the manner in which initial linkages are formed.
The second principle, life span development, is characterized by the view that humans develop in biologically, socially, and psychologically meaningful ways beyond childhood (Elder et al., 2003). New situations encountered in adulthood are shaped by earlier experiences and their attached meanings (Marshall & Mueller, 2003), suggesting that how women become a mother to a sick infant will be shaped by their previous relationships and mothering.
Human lives are shaped by questions of when and where in a sociohistorical sense, making the principle of time and place foundational to life course research. Culture defines a specific place in time (Gieryn, 2000). Use of obstetric technology expanded in the late 20thand early 21stcenturies, marking the beginning of a cultural shift in which prenatal testing, ultrasonography (US), and electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) have become the norm Similarly, neonatal technology has created a culture that includes a language of laboratory values, ventilator settings, and feeding volumes that replace conversations typical of parents, relatives, and friends after the birth of a fullterm infant. The technical and medicalized culture of both obstetric and neonatal care may influence women’s experiences of high-risk pregnancy and subsequent mothering.
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.
The role of family relationships within the life course is likely to undergo further modification with the experiences of new cohorts influenced by wider social and historical change.
Life course approaches emphasize the way in which individual trajectories and transitions are linked to the lives of significant others, with the interdependency of generations being one such example. The idea of families having ”interlocking trajectories” was first explored in the work of the American sociologist Glenn Elder, most notably in his Children of the Great Depression (1974). This study illustrated how delays in the parents’ timing of work and family careers as a result of the economic depression of the 1930s affected the subsequent timing of their children’s own life transitions. Another example of the ”linked lives” phenomenon has been illustrated in research on grandparenting that examines situations where grandparents take responsibility for raising grandchildren. Silverstein et al. (2003) view this as an example of ”mutual interdependency” within the family, with grandparents adopting new parental roles and parents excused from the main responsibilities associated with parenting. In this way, the researchers suggest, the family can be seen as a group of interlocking individuals who continually adapt both to their own needs and to those of others within the family system.
Life course research has also underlined the variability of expectations and patterns of support, with patterns of generational assistance shaped by values and experiences that evolve throughout life. Hareven and Adams (1996) demonstrate this point from research in the US examining how the premigration history of different ethnic groups influences expectations of support in later life. They demonstrate how older cohorts tend to emphasize support from family members; younger cohorts, in contrast, tend to stress help from social and welfare programs. They further note the way in which the earlier life course experiences of each cohort, as shaped by historical events, also affect the avail ability of economic and educational resources and support networks.
The life course approach has been highly influential in research on the family life of older people, with the idea of linked lives demonstrating how expectations about giving and receiving support are part of a continuing interaction among parents, children, and other kin over their lives as they move through time (Hareven 2001). Although the growth of individualism may have loosened kinship ties to a degree (Beck & Beck Gernsheim 2004), relationships between generations continue to be important in the family life of older people (Phillipson et al. 2001). The work of Attias Donfut and Wolff (2000) in France has highlighted the role of the ”pivot” (middle age) generation in pro viding economic support to young people on the threshold of adulthood, as well as providing flexible forms of care for the older generation as need arises. Generations have also been shown to provide emotional support for one another at different points of the life course. Research in the US has tracked feelings of emotional closeness and support across generations and found that emotional closeness stayed stable over a period of nearly two decades, with the maintenance of strong levels of affectual solidarity across generations, with adult children both pro viding and receiving help from mothers and fathers.
Given greater longevity, multi-generational ties have assumed much greater importance for securing wellbeing and support for individuals over the life course. At the same time, the diver sity of family ties must also be acknowledged. Generational relationships remain important in anchoring people at different points of the life course; however, not everyone is involved to the same degree in such relationships. The role of family relationships within the life course is likely to undergo further modification with the experiences of new cohorts influenced by wider social and historical change. The key point to acknowledge here is the dynamic process involved with different age groups both influencing the shape of the life course, while themselves being affected by changes operating at an institutional level. Families with their connecting intergenerational bonds will remain at the center of this process, and are themselves likely to contribute to what will be a major area of social change in the years ahead.
With increased life expectancy, smaller family size associated with low fertility rates, and closer spacing of children, the average couple can now expect to live for 25 years or more after their last child has moved out.
The concept of the life course refers to the social processes shaping individuals’ journey through life, in particular their interaction with major institutions associated with the family, work, education, and leisure. The life course perspective distinguishes between trajectories on the one side and transitions on the other.
Family Life Course Development. (2018, Jan 28). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/family-life-course-development/
Family Life Course Development. (2018, Jan 28). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/family-life-course-development/
Family life course development theory is a broad theory to explain the patterned change, the dynamic nature of the family, and how change occurs within the family cycle.
Life-course can be conceptualized as a pathway drawn from earlier life events through later life events based on the new events entered. Each point on the pathway represents an available option that opens up because of the previous selection. Can be based on personal choice or larger institutional or unavoidable influences.
Hard to define family trends and development because of the heterogenity of family norms and the increase of societys continuous move toward more individualism.
Roles: All the norms attached to one of the kinship positions.
Shifts from one family stage to another. Combines the concept of stage, event, and time. Family transitions consist of paths taken and not taken overtime. Transitions are indicated by events between stages. Transitional events can be on time or off time. During transitions families experience high levels of stress as they move from familiar roles, rules, patterns of behavior, and interaction to new patterns appropriate for the next stage. (Concluding transitional event: an event that defines the ending of a stage).
child development focus es on ontogenetic development. Focuses on genetic capacity to progress in stages.
Theory is descriptive but is not research generating.