Chapter 2 – Shanahan and Macmillan
The Life Course as a Paradigm
p. 46 bottom – “This chapter provides further detail about the life course, exploring many of the
principles, mechanisms and concepts that together constitute the life course as a paradigm. The
overarching goal of any paradigm is to create a new way of looking at things and to provide
basic tools with which the imagination can work.”
Principles of the Life Course
*note – p. 47 middle - “all but the first principle discussed below have a special status as linking
mechanisms: they identify processes by which transitions and behavioral development are
interrelated.”
p. 48 - “Principles of the life course paradigm help us think about how such changes and the
transitions they precipitate affect people’s lives.”
Principle #1 – p. 48 – Historical Time and Place - the life course takes on different patterns in
different historical times and geographic places.
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Example – each graduating class encounters a different labor market, characterized by
a unique level of opportunity and unique forms of employment.
Principle #2 – p. 49 – Situational Imperatives - the importance of situational imperatives, which
refer to the demands or requirements of a new situation
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Example – the more demanding the situation, the more individual behavior is
constrained to meet role expectations – the boys growing up during the great
depression who were called upon to meet the economic and labor needs of their hardpressed families.
o These boys turned out to be quite successful and experienced something like
adult status that served them well in the work world and gave them self
assurance in their work careers
Principle #3 – p. 50 – Linked Lives
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the effects of social change on a person’s life greatly depend on his or her network of
interpersonal relationships, including, for example, immediate and extended family
members, mentors, and close friends.
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Principle #4 – p. 51 – Agency - Through the exercise of agency, people construct their own life
course through their actions, reactions, and choices.
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Overarching point – people are purposive – they act based on past experience and
what they have learned from it
People strive to maintain a sense of control over their biography
Principle #5 – p. 52 – Life-Stage – the meaning and consequences of events depend on when
they occur in a person’s life
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Acknowledges that, without locating people with respect to their age and with respect
to history, the life course cannot be understood in its full complexity
It is not chronological age per se but rather “social age” and “social timing” that
determine the significance of historical change and social context
Principle #6 – p. 54 – Accentuation – when transition heightens a prominent attribute that
people bring to the new role or situation, we refer to the changes as an accentuation effect
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Relates transitional experiences to the individual’s life history of past events, acquired
dispositions, and meanings
Behavioral patterns before transition are magnified with social change
p. 54 - “These principles – summarized in Table 2.1 (p. 55) – represent conceptual tools that help
understand the connections among individual lives, developmental trajectories, and the changing
social world.”
These principles are useful for helping understand all kinds of transitions in the life course, not
just large scale historical or social transitions. For example, they are useful in helping us
understand transitions from adolescence to young adulthood; losing a job; serious illness; etc.
All six principles are working in concert to help us understand biography
p. 56 – read – “in other words, the many factors that shape a biography operate in concert.
Imagine for a moment that your family has just lost everything but the house or apartment that
you live in. What would life be like?”
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The answer is likely to be different for each person because the six principles
combine in different ways for different people and different families
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The principles allow us to study these differences in a systematic way
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P. 59 – because each life reflects the workings of the principles of the life course,
each life is recognizable as human experience. And yet, because the principles come
together in untold diversity, every life is different.
Shanahan and Macmillan caution us against making the same error as Erikson –
- Ontogenetic fallacy – p. 63 – refers to attempts to explain lives by referring to
assumed, inherent properties of people at the expense of a thoroughly social
explanation.”
o A life course view resists the common temptation to explain someone’s life by
saying “that’s the way people are” and presses the inquiry by asking how the
social context has shaped the life story.”
o P. 66 – “To avoid the ontogenetic fallacy, the analyst must ask what it is about
the person’s setting that helps account for their experiences and behavior.”
Useful Concepts in Life Course Studies
These concepts provide ways of viewing or thinking about social context through time
All of these concepts are defined and demonstrated with examples in Table 2.2 on p. 86
Social Pathways – p. 66 – refer to likely sequences of social positions within and between
organizations and institutions.
- Examples include – progressing through the grade levels of the school system,
tracking within schools, leaving the school system and starting a new job, and then
conducting one’s career within a company and between companies.
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They are:
o Contextual – because the refer to sets of positions within a system
o Dynamic – because they refer to movement through the positions
o Have specified time boundaries – maturity for voting or marriage
o Age-graded – on-time and late transitions
o Structure the direction that people’s lives can take – produce or constrain
opportunities
o Multi-level phenomena – p. 68 top – read – “…people work out their life
course in terms of established or institutionalized pathways. At the macro end
of this multilevel system, pathways are generally established by governments.
At the lower levels, the terms may be set by institutional sectors (e.g.,
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economy or education), by local communities, school systems, labor markets,
and neighborhoods. Each level of the system, from macro to micro, socially
regulates the decision and action processes of the life course, producing areas
of coordination as well as discord and contradiction (e.g., laws governing
marriage, divorce, and adoption). At the level of the individual actor, some
decision pressures and constraints are linked to federal regulation, some to the
social regulations of an employer, and some to state and community
legislation.”
Cumulative Processes – p. 71 – reflect long term patterns of experiences
- Can explain why childhood experiences matter for adulthood – at the same time, care
must be taken not to overestimate the effects of childhood experiences on adult
behaviors
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Cumulation associated with duration – p. 71 – long periods of time spent in a given
social role – student, worker, spouse, parent – tend to increase behavioral continuity
through acquired obligations, investments, and habits.
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Cumulation associated with a sequence – p. 74 – “many cumulative processes refer
not to the duration of a particular social circumstance, but rather to the triggering of
chains of interrelated events (or sequences), which in turn, have significant
implications for later well-being and attainment.”
o P. 75 – “antisocial youth tend to affiliate with other problem youth, and their
interaction generally accentuates their behavior, producing over time what
might be described as cumulative disadvantages.”
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Cumulative Continuity – p. 75 –
o P. 75 Dupre’s research – 2/3rds down the page – read – “The basic idea is that
people with higher education will shape their environments…”
o the cumulation of experiences tend to maintain and promote the same
behavioral outcome
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Reciprocal Continuity – p. 76 – refers to a continuous interchange between person
and environment in which action is followed by reaction and then by another cycle of
action and reaction.
o the cumulation of experiences tend to maintain and promote the same
behavioral outcome
o example – ill-tempered child provokes parental anger/withdrawal, which
aggravates child’s outburst; aggressive children generally expect others to be
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hostile and thus behave in ways that elicit hostility, confirming their initial
suspicions and reinforcing their behavior.
Trajectory – p. 78 – provide a dynamic view of behavior and achievements, typically over a
substantial part of the life span.
- A life course trajectory does not prejudge the direction, degree, or rate of change in
its course
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Developmental Trajectory – p. 79 – refers to change and constancy in the same
behavior or disposition over time, not consistency of measurement may be difficult to
achieve in many cases
o Antisocial behavior from childhood to adolescence – different behaviors
indicate antisocial behavior (childhood – biting; adolescence – lying; young
adulthood substance abuse) but an antisocial trajectory just the same
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Synchronization – p. 80 – temporal coordination of two or more trajectories or roles
o we are often on multiple trajectories simultaneously and need to coordinate
them
Transition – p. 78 – combining a role exit and entry, is embedded in a trajectory that gives it
specific form and meaning (example – work transitions are core elements of a work trajectory)
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p. 80 – the meaning of transition has much to do with its timing in a trajectory
p. 81 – bottom – life transitions can be thought of as a succession of mini-transitions
or choice points
p. 81 – early transitions can have lifelong implications because of behavioral
consequences that set in motion cumulative advantages and disadvantages
o the quality of transition experiences early in life may foretell the likelihood of
successful and unsuccessful adaptation to later transitions across the life
course
p. 82 – “transitions have both an institutionalized and a personal, idiosyncratic nature.
In many cases, life transitions are at once an institutionalized status passage in the life
course of birth cohorts and a personalized transition for individuals with a distinctive
life history.”
Turning Point – p. 82 – dramatic change in both the internal and the external aspects of the life
course
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allow for new opportunities and behavior patterns
Shanahan and Macmillan on all the principles and concepts presented in Chapter 2 –
p. 85 – “The implication is clear: people’s lives cannot be fully understood by focusing
on one point in time or by neglecting their context. Rather, their social settings and their
patterns of adjustment and behavior have dynamic qualities and it is these dynamic
qualities that determine their meaning.
Students should be able to apply these principles and concepts to their own stories. Keep this in
mind for your biographies assignment due at the end of the semester.
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Tip - Re-read how the authors applied the principles and concepts to Darwin’s
biography on pp. 91-100 for ideas of how you might be able to do this for your own
story.
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