Chapter 3 – Biography and the Sociological Imagination
Macro Views of the Life Course
Biography on a macro scale involves exploring differences in how people think about their
biographies over large periods of time or across geopolitical units like nations
These macro views are united by one theme – p. 174 – “the basic scaffolding of the biography –
the life course as a social structure – is socially organized and hence subject to change with
historical time and variation across societies.”
- The life course is socially constructed
- We are socially constructed
- We differ from each other because the life course that was constructed for one time
and place may be different than the life course constructed for a different time or
place
Some typical questions asked by macro life course sociologists:
- How are retirement transitions different among the various countries of the European
Union and why?
- Did “adolescence” always exist?
- Have educational patterns changed in the United States since 1776, and if so, how and
why?
- Is it really more difficult than ever before to be an American teenager?

P. 107 - “These questions reflect a macro orientation because they are interested in
comparing how aspects of the life course differ through history and across
geopolitical units. Such comparisons are often complex and the types of data
required are sometimes not available.”
Macro Views of the Life Course
Macro Approach Description/Themes/Concepts/Ideas
Social History
Generations
Cohorts
Cross-National
Comparisons
Research Examples
Critique
Macro Views of the Life Course
Macro Approach Description/Themes/Concepts/Ideas
Social History
Changes in life phases – p. 109 – life phases are
not static across time – they are “invented”
Demographic Patterns and Cultural Practices – p.
111 – impact the construction of the life course
- Cultural practice of binding – send children to
another household as a servant
- Demographic patterns – like fertility and
mortality impact the occurrence, timing and
length of life phases
Representations and Representers – p. 115 –
“premise that structural conditions fundamentally
shape the contours of adolescence” – different
adolescent experiences were created depending
on region, social class, gender – there are many
different “versions” of adolescence
- top p. 116 – read – “respresentations of youth
often said as much (or more) about the
preoccupations of middle- and upper-class adults
– “the representers” – than it did about the youth
themselves.
- p. 117 – top – “In the course of nineteenthcentury America, then, “representers” …”
- p. 143 – provides a good recap of basic premise
of this approach and critique
Generations
- an approach to linking people’s lives with
historical change
- P. 121 – def. – Generation – refer to a group of
people who are similar in age, who share
common historical experiences, who develop a
unique subculture and/or consciousness, and who
come to view themselves as a unique group in
society because they differ from earlier groups
- p. 143 – provides a good recap of basic premise
of this approach and critique
Research Examples
Arie – changes to childhood and
the emergence of adolescence –
Centuries of Childhood – 1960
Gillis – 1974 – Youth and
History
Critique
3 important contributions of Arie’s work
– pp. 110-111
- Critiqued data collection – focus on
what children wore, how they were
portrayed in literature and art, etc.
- P. 114 – read contributions of Gillis’s
work – last paragraph
Kett – Rites of Passage - 1977
- p. 117 – read contributions of Kett’s
work – bottom – “Kett’s history of youth
is thus…”
- P. 118 – read from 1/3 down on page –
“More broadly, these works illustrate….”
– read all the way to p. 119
Critique of all historical research
presented here – lacks precision and hard
to replicate data collection/systematic
study
Mannheim
Alwin and McCammon
- provides more precision and the
possibility of replication to the work of
social historians
- p. 127 – “an important problem with the
study of Generations: although
membership in a Generation…”
Macro Approach Description/Themes/Concepts/Ideas
Cohorts
- another approach to linking people’s lives with
historical change
Cohort Flow and Social Change
- def – p. 127 – “refers to a group of people who
experience the same event or condition within the
same time interval. – people born within a
specified duration of time, almost always a
calendar year.”
- p. 129 – “birth cohort studies describe basic
changes in life phases, such as how the age of
first marriage is changing, how levels of
education are changing through time, and how the
causes of mortality have changed.”
Relations among Cohorts
- P. 137 – Easterlin “argues that cohorts can alter
biographical patterns because of their relative
size. The ‘Easterlin effect’…”
- continue to read – p. 139 – “a small birthrate
cohort will represent a ‘smaller supply of
workers’ who will find it easier to locate wellpaying jobs and to advance in their careers….
- p. 143-144 – provides a good recap of basic
premise of this approach and critique
Cross-National
p. 146 – cross national comparisons based on two
Comparisons
suppositions:
1-nations differ in their laws, policies, and
institutions, and these structural differences
produce different life courses
2-the life course became increasingly
“chronologized” with modernization, meaning
that age became increasingly important as a
criterion in organizing the biography (which
results in the life course being more predictable)
-p. 147 – “The nation-state has also been a force
behind the institutionalization of the life course.”
Research Examples
Featherman and Hauser – 1978
– Opportunity and Change
- father’s education &
occupational prestige predicting
son’s education and first job –
but Featherman and Hauser
gave this a macro focus by
asking how that relationship has
changed over time
- p. 133 presents data in Table
3.2
Critique
- provides more precision and the
possibility of replication to the work of
social historians
Easterlin – 1980 – Brith and
Fortune
- P. 140 – read “Nevertheless, eveidence
for the Easterlin hypothesis is mixed…..
Mayer – p. 148-149 – Table 3.3
data – shows how political
economies interrelate with life
courses
- “central premise is that
different political economies
give rise to different life course
patterns because of their distinct
educational systems, labor
markets, and policies regarding
transfer payments (i.e. taxation,
etc.)”
p. 145 – “In general, cross-national
comparisons are difficult because…”
p. 152-153 – pos – “the key point is that
the basic contours of the biography,
including one’s education, work and
family, are powerfully shaped by
political and economic arrangements that
are unique to nations and hard to
appreciate without a cross-national
view.”
Master Trends in Social Change and the Life Course
- read intro to this section – p. 153 – “macro studies still suggest a number of long-term
trends…”
A. The Destruction and Emergence of Life Phases – p. 153
- new phases in the life course are created
- examples: - Arie’s argument that adolescence was invented
- Moen argues that societal changes have created a phase of life
called “midcourse” – roughly ages 50-70
- Arnett – p. 155 – argues that “emerging adulthood” now
constitutes a phase in the life course that extends between
adolescence and adulthood (applicable to privileged segment of the
population)
- Pettit and Western –p. 156 – argue that “jail time” is a new phase
of the life course for black American males with no college
education – time spent in jail is almost routine phase of the life
course
B. The Predictability of the Life Course – p. 159
- Mayer argues the nation-state has “periodized” or “standardized” the life course
- organize age-groupings through the process of institutionalization
- results in more predictable life course sequence
- p. 159 – “This greater predictability, it is thought, includes family formation
(marriage, parenthood), education (progression through the school system, age of
school completion), and career (entry into the workplace, retirement).
Predictability and Variability
- P. 164 – “some scholars argue that modernization has promoted both standardization
and variability in the life course. Martin Kohli, for example, has argued that the life
course has become both more standardized by age and less determined by the family
locale.”
- P. 165 – “Marlis Buchmann’s 1989 book The Script of Modern Life argues that the
highly standardized trajectories of school, work, and family have been ‘shattered’ by
several structural and cultural developments since 1960s, leading to new levels and
forms of individualization.”
Five general conclusions about predictability of life course – pp. 166-167
C. The Life Course as Subjective Project
- researchers have also focused on how the life course is subjectively experienced – p.
167 – “that is, how have people’s understandings of their own biographies changed
through history?
- read p. 167 halfway down – “These ideas suggest that, with modernity, people
came to under3stand their lives increasingly as ‘projects’ with life goals and
purposive behavior. In contrast, premodern people tended to view their futures as
‘givens’ determined by their familial circumstances and the traditions of the
locale.”
-
P. 172 – “These considerations suggest that the life course of the modern self is
uniquely shaped by individualism, which leads people to develop plans about their
lives, to pursue these plans with purposeful action, and to place great value on the
predictability of their futures.”
-
The modern self is an ongoing reflexive process – “personal identity is not achieved
and finalized but rather is continually being created in response to one’s social
setting.”
-
This leads us into chapter 4 wherein Shanahan and Macmillan explore the subjective
experience of the life course at the micro-level.
p. 175 - Table 3.4 – Select Macro Life Course Concepts