Life Course Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth F. Ferraro
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Life Span ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Aging Process ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Aging Study ◽  
Vantage Points ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Life Course Analysis

Life course analysis prioritizes the long view of aging: study aging as a process from embryo to death and how the timing of events and exposures shapes those lives. The act of analyzing the life course (or life span) highlights an intellectual tension in the field that has existed for decades: Is gerontology the study of older organisms or how those organisms age? Although human social services are often organized by age groups, science is better off studying the aging process—how the organism became older. In humans and animals, the experience of aging varies by historical time and place. Three vantage points for life course analysis are specified: the study of (1) early origins, (2) centenarians, and (3) family lineage.

Folklore and Folklife of American Age Groups and Aging

2018 ◽  
pp. 844-866
Author(s):  
Mary L. Sellers
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Childhood And Adolescence ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Infancy And Early Childhood ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Pregnancy And Birth

Folklore occurs at every stage of a person’s life, and this chapter covers the way folklore and folklife across, and of, the life course has been studied. Six divisions in the life course that mark traditions of age groups as well as perceived stages in the United States are pregnancy and birth, infancy and early childhood, childhood and adolescence, adulthood, seniority, and death. Although much of the scholarship of age groups has been on the beginning and end of life, I demonstrate the conditions of aging in adolescence through the senior years that generate folklore and should be studied in relation to formation of age-group identity. This chapter emphasizes the use of folklore as an adaptation to aging. It examines the connection of folk traditions to the role that anxiety plays in the aging process, the formation of self and group identity, and the rites of passage that mark transitions from one stage to another. It shows that the presence of invented and emerging traditions indicates changing values and beliefs across the life course and encourages research in age-based research as a basic component of folklore and folklife studies.

Foster Care in a Life Course Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 692 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-252
Author(s):  
Fred Wulczyn
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Foster Children ◽  
Foster Parents ◽  
Local Variation ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Policy Priority ◽  
The Life Course

To understand what placement outside of one’s home means to the young people involved, we must understand foster care from a life course perspective. I analyze young people’s experiences in foster care from this perspective, accounting for when foster care happens, how long it lasts, and what happens when foster care placements end. I show that the population of children coming into foster care is younger and less urban than it was 20 years ago. I also show reliable measures of exposure to foster care over the life course. Children who enter care early in life are the children who spend the largest proportion of their childhood in foster care—a fact that rarely weighs on the policymaking process. We know very little about state and local variation in foster care placement rates, not to mention the influence of social services, the courts, foster parents, and caseworkers over foster children, so I close by arguing investment in research should be a clear policy priority.

scholarly journals A Gendered Life Course Explanation of the Exit Decision in the Context of Household Dynamics

2020 ◽  
pp. 104225872094012
Author(s):  
Dilani Jayawarna ◽  
Susan Marlow ◽  
Janine Swail
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Discrete Time ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Male Partner ◽  
Event History ◽  
Household Dynamics ◽  
Time Required ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Household Analysis ◽  
Life Course Analysis

Using a gendered household analysis, we explore the extent to which operating a business upon a flexible basis at specific times in the life course impacts upon an entrepreneur’s exit from their business. Drawing upon UK data and a discrete-time event history model to conduct a life course analysis, we find women caring for young children are more likely to exit given limited returns related to incompatible demands between the time required to generate sufficient returns and caring demands. Limited returns however, were not significant to continuation rates if a male partner contributed a compensatory household income.

scholarly journals Exploration of Finnish adults’ successful weight management over the life course: a qualitative study

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anu Joki ◽  
Johanna Mäkelä ◽  
Hanna Konttinen ◽  
Mikael Fogelholm
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Weight Management ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Normal Weight ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
Active Lifestyle ◽  
Health Promoting ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract Background Despite the current obesogenic environment creating challenges weight management, some people succeed in maintaining a normal weight. This study explored lifelong weight management from the life course perspective. We aimed to gain an insight into the issues related to the pathways of individuals of normal weight from childhood to adulthood, and how their experiences and social connections influence their weight management. Methods We approached the research topic using qualitative methods. Two age groups (30–45; 55–70 years, men and women), forming a total of 39 individuals, participated in theme interviews. Thematic analysis resulted in two main categories, namely (1) adoption of lifestyle and (2) maintenance of lifestyle. Results Childhood family played a central role in the formation of lifestyle: food-upbringing created the basis for the interviewees’ current diet, and their lives had always been characterized by an active lifestyle. High perceived self-efficacy was vital in weight management. The interviewees were confident about their routines and trusted their abilities to recognize and handle situations that threatened their lifestyles. They possessed skills for adjusting their lifestyle to altered environments, and showed a high level of coping self-efficacy. The interviewees also highlighted the importance of habits for weight management. They had improved their adopted lifestyle through constant learning. New routines had become more internalized through active repetition, finally turning into habitual practices, which simplified weight management. Conclusions Based on our interviews, we conclude that childhood was important in the development of the health-promoting lifestyle of our interviewees. However, weight management was described as a journey over the life course, and success also encouraged skills of identifying risks and adjusting actions to cope with challenging situations.

Time, Scheduling and Cinema-Going

2011 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jancovich
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Activities ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Time Scheduling ◽  
Consumption Change ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Over Time

The article considers the ways in which the meanings of film consumption are shaped by their timing or scheduling within people's lives. It begins by considering the ways in which these meanings are shaped in relation to historical time, and how the meanings of film consumption change over time. It then moves on to consider the ‘life course’, or the ways in which meanings of film consumption are affected by the different stages that people pass through across a lifetime. Finally, the article considers more cyclical patterns and routines such as those of the year, week and day. In the process, it seeks to demonstrate that film consumption is about much more than the interpretation of individual programs, and involves a series of social activities that are meaningful within broader social contexts.

scholarly journals Reflections on life-course vaccination: the England experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Meningococcal Disease ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Disease Group ◽  
Life Course Approach ◽  
Group B ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
In Pregnancy

Abstract Since the introduction of the expanded programme on immunization in the 1970s, vaccination has evolved from being an intervention of early infancy to being a programme targeting individuals at all stages of life including birth, infancy, childhood, teenage years, pregnancy and adulthood. The UK has been at the forefront of this lifelong approach to vaccination and has introduced vaccines at all stages of life in its national schedule, including vaccination against hepatitis B at birth, Meningococcal disease group B in infancy, influenza in primary school years, Meningococcal disease groups A, C, W and Y in teenage years, pertussis in pregnancy and shingles in older adults. Based on a range of studies conducted by Public Health England, This session will reflect on some of the challenges brought on by the life course approach in the UK including issues of access in different age groups, choosing the right age and settings for vaccinations, age-specific attitudes to vaccination and subsequent communication strategies, and challenges with monitoring a life-course programme.

scholarly journals The networked question in the digital era: How do networked, bounded, and limited individuals connect at different stages in the life course?

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Wellman ◽  
Anabel Quan-Haase ◽  
Molly-Gloria Harper
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Networked Individualism

AbstractWe used in-depth interviews with 101 participants in the East York section of Toronto, Canada to understand how digital media affects social connectivity in general—and networked individualism in particular—for people at different stages of the life course. Although people of all ages intertwined their use of digital media with their face-to-face interactions, younger adults used more types of digital media and have more diversified personal networks. People in different age-groups conserved media, tending to stick with the digital media they learned to use in earlier life stages. Approximately one-third of the participants were Networked Individuals: In each age-group, they were the most actively using digital media to maintain ties and to develop new ones. Another one-third were Socially Bounded, who often actively used digital media but kept their connectivity within a smaller set of social groups. The remaining one-third, who were Socially Limited, were the least likely to use digital media. Younger adults were the most likely to be Networked Individuals, leading us to wonder if the percentage of the population who are Bounded or Limited will decline over time.

scholarly journals Age Effect on the Bidirectional Relations Between Alcohol Consumption and Pain

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 289-289
Author(s):  
Matthew Lee ◽  
Kenneth Sher ◽  
Ellen Yeung
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Age Effect ◽  
Pain Interference ◽  
Self Medication ◽  
Bidirectional Association ◽  
Bidirectional Relations ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract Alcohol consumption reduces but pain rises over the life course. Thus, we hypothesized that developmental variability in the bidirectional association between alcohol consumption and pain would vary as a function of age. This hypothesis was tested across three age groups – younger (<29), middle (29-65), and older (>65) using NESARC wave 1 and 2 data (N=34,653). The effect of pain interference at baseline on alcohol consumption at follow-up was non-significant across the age groups, indicating that self-medication theory was unsupported. The effect of alcohol consumption at baseline on pain interference at follow-up was significant among the middle (Estimate -.007, p=.002) and older (Estimate -.019, p<.001) groups, but non-significant among the younger group. This latter effect differed significantly between the younger and older groups (p =.005) and the middle and older groups (p=.041). Results show that alcohol consumption reduces pain interference, especially later in life.

scholarly journals A Life-Course Analysis of Engagement in Violent Extremist Groups

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoffer Carlsson ◽  
Amir Rostami ◽  
Hernan Mondani ◽  
Joakim Sturup ◽  
Jerzy Sarnecki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Adulthood ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Life Course Theory ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Social Controls ◽  
Extremist Groups ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Life Course Analysis

AbstractIn this exploratory study, individuals’ processes of engagement in violent extremist groups are analysed by drawing from criminological life-course theory and narrative-based understandings of crime. Based on interviews with individuals who have participated in violent extremism, it is suggested that the process of engagement consists of three steps: (1) a weakening of informal social controls, followed by (2) an interaction with individuals in proximity to the group and (3) a stage of meaning-making in relation to the group and one’s identity, resulting in an individual’s willingness and capacity to engaging in the group’s activities, including violence. In future theorizing about processes of engagement in violent extremism, the meanings of age, and the life-course stages of late adolescence and emerging adulthood in particular, should be given analytic attention.

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