Chapter 1- A Life Course Perspective PDF

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SOWK 1101 Professor Edwards-Knight...

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SOWK 2182-003 8-22-17 CHAPTER 1- A LIFE COURSE PERSPECTIVE A Definition of the Life Course Perspective ● Purpose and approach of social work: ○ Promote human and community well-being ○ Guided by: ■ Person-in-environment ● Micro ● Mezzo ● Macro ■ Global perspective ■ Respect for human diversity ■ Evidence-based knowledge ○ Actualized through the quest for social and economic justice ■ Special attention to human rights issues ● Social workers believe in helping/caring ○ Elimination of poverty and enhancement of quality of life for all persons ● Life Course Perspective (LCP) ○ Relationship between time and human behavior ○ How biological, psychological, and social factors act independently, cumulatively, and interactively to shape people’s lives from conception to death across generations ● Six core social work values ○ Service ○ Social justice ○ Dignity and worth of the person ○ Importance of human relationships ○ Integrity ○ Competence ● Perspectives- time: ○ Historical ○ Chronological ○ Linear ● Environmental factors ○ Social movements ■ Ex- black lives matter ○ Communities ○ Formal organizations ○ Small groups ■ Peers, clubs, organizations, role models ○ Families

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Dyads ■ People that you have the closest relationship with ● Husband, wife, son, daughter, girlfriend, boyfriend Social institutions Social structure Culture Physical environment Religion Spirituality ■ Organizations like AA

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Person ○ Biopsychosocial ■ Biological ● Things you get from your genetics / hereditary things ● Health ○ And access to healthcare ■ Psychological ● Genetic predispositions ○ Some mental illnesses may be genetically linked ■ Bipolar disorder ■ Depression ● Psychological makeup ○ Resilience ○ Coping skills ○ Support system ○ Personality ○ Character ○ Morals ■ Social ● How you interact with people ○ And who you interact with ● Parents’ socioeconomic status ● Social media ○ Spiritual

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How to View LCP ○ Think of life course as a path ○ Event history ■ Sequence of significant events, experiences, and transitions in a person’s life from birth to death ● Ex- marriage, having a child, death of a loved one, divorce

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How a person’s life has been synchronized with family members’ lives across time How culture and social institutions shape the pattern of individual lives

Theoretical Roots of the Life Course Perspective ● LCP is a theoretical model ● Glen Elder Jr ○ Sociologist ○ One of the early authors to write about LCP ● Emerging over the last 50 years across several disciplines ○ Popularity has grown across disciplines ● Tamara Hareven ○ Played a key role in developing the subdiscipline of the family ● Developmental psychology- looks at the events that typically occur in people’s lives at certain stages ○ Looks for universal, predictable events and pathways ○ LCP calls attention to how historical time, social location, and culture affect the individual experience of each life stage Basic Concepts of the Life Course Perspective: Cohorts ● Group of persons who were born during the same time period and who experience particular social changes within a given culture in the same sequence and at the same age ○ Generation- similar meaning but usually moves through a period of 20 years ○ Cohort may be shorter than that ● Differ in size ● Develop strategies for special circumstances they face ● Population pyramid ○ Chart that depicts the proportion of the population in each age group ● Sex ratio ○ Number of males per 100 females ■ Estimated that there are 105 males born for every 100 females in the world ○ Affects a cohort’s: ■ Marriage rates ■ Childbearing practices ■ Crime rates ■ Family stability ○ Racial disparities ■ Esp among whites and african americans ○ Affected by global trends ■ War ■ Human migration

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Affected by cultural norms ■ Male children preferred over female children

Basic Concepts of the Life Course Perspective: Transitions ● Changes in roles and statuses that represent a distinct departure from prior roles and statuses ● Process of gradual change that usually involves acquiring or relinquishing roles but can also be any change in status ○ Could also be change due to crisis ● Each transition: ○ Changes statuses and roles ○ Generally is accompanied by exits and entrances into and out of roles ■ Discrete and bounded ● One phase ends and another begins ● Roles can be undefined (role confusion) ● Happens in all aspects of life ○ Within family life: ■ Marriages ■ Births ■ Divorces ■ Remarriages ○ Within organizations: ■ Educational ■ Employment ■ Career changes

Basic Concepts of the Life Course Perspective: Trajectory ● A longer view of long-term patterns of stability and change in a person’s life ○ Involves multiple transitions ● The path from one transition to the next ○ Trajectories are embedded in transitions ● Long-term pattern of stability and change ○ Lives are made up of multiple, intersecting trajectories Basic Concepts of the Life Course Perspective: Life Events ● Significant occurrence involving a relatively abrupt change that may produce serious and long lasting effects ○ Refers to the “happening” itself ■ Not the transitions that will occur because of it ● Social Readjustment Rating Score (Holmes & Rahe)- common method for evaluating the effect of life events

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Specific life events have different meanings to different individuals and different collectives ○ Not all are negative Life events inventories are biased toward undesirable events more commonly experienced by certain groups of people ○ Young adults ○ Men ○ Whites ○ Middle- class

Basic Concepts of the Life Course Perspective: Turning Points (IMPORTANT- PAPER) ● Time when major change occurs IN THE LIFE COURSE TRAJECTORY ● “Defining moments” ● May involve transformations in: ○ How the person views themselves in relation to the world ○ How the person responds to risk and opportunity ● 3 types of life events that can serve as turning points ○ Either closed or open opportunities ○ Make a lasting change on the person’s environment ○ Change a person’s self-concept, beliefs, or expectations ■ Self-concept- how you feel about yourself and your expectations ● Most life course pathways include multiple turning points ● A transition can become a turning point under 5 conditions: ○ Occurs simultaneously w a crisis or is followed by a crisis ○ Involves family conflict over the needs/wants of individuals and the greater good of the family unit ○ When it is “off time”, meaning that it does not occur at the typical stage in life ■ Ex- teen pregnancy ○ Followed by unforeseen negative consequences ○ Requires exceptional social adjustments Major Themes of the Life Course Perspective: Interplay of Human Lives and Historical Time ● Individual and family development must be understood in historical context ● Cohort effects- distinctive formative experiences are shared at the same point in the life course and have a lasting impact on a birth cohort ● Changes in other social institutions and global events influence family and individual life course trajectories ○ Ex- 9/11 Major Themes of the Life Course Perspective: Timing of Lives ● Biological age ○ Person’s level of biological development and physical health

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■ Measured by the functioning of various organ systems Psychological age ○ Capacities that people have ○ Skills used to adapt to changing demands ○ The age they think themselves to be Social age ○ Age-graded roles and behaviors expected by society ○ Socially constructed and change over time ○ Age norm is used to indicate the behaviors expected of people of a specific age in a given society at a particular point in time Spiritual age ○ Current position on the ongoing search for meaning, purpose, and moral relationships Age structuring ○ The standardization of the ages at which social role transitions occur, by developing policies and laws that regulate the timing of these transitions ■ Varies significantly by country and culture

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Unintended consequence: age segregation ● You aren't where you should be as far as social role (like if your parents kicked you out at 16) ■ In spite of formal age structuring, there is much diversity in the sequence and timing of adult life course markers Laws and regulations about the ages for: ○ Driving ○ Compulsory [required by law] education ○ Working ○ Pensions/ social insurance ○ Holding public office ○ Being tried as an adult ○ Marrying ○ Drinking There can also be social policies ○ Ex- when you should move out of your parents’ house Question: ○ Are age-graded social roles and statuses moving toward greater standardization or greater diversification? ■ Life patterns seem to be becoming— at the same time— more diversified AND standardized

Major Themes of the Life Course Perspective: Linked or Interdependent Lives ● Relationships support and control individual behavior

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Social support- help rendered by others that benefits an individual or the collective Links between family members ○ Connection between: ■ Family hardships ■ Family nuturance ■ Child behaviors ○ Economic connection between parents and children ○ Parents provide social capital for their children as role models and networks of social support Within workplace Within neighborhood Links with the wider world ○ Labor market ○ Housing market ○ Education system ○ Welfare system ○ Systems of institutionalized privilege and oppression ■ Institutionalized privilege- people with privilege have access to these institutions ● Ex- ivy league schools ■ Institutionalized oppression ● Ex- voting laws that discriminate against minorities, homeless, etc ● Public school zoning ○ The lifestyles of people in affluent countries depend on cheap labor and cheap raw products in less affluent countries ○ Social capital ■ “It’s not what you know, but who you know”

Major Themes of the Life Course Perspective: Human Agency in Making Choices ● Individual life course is constructed by the choices and actions individuals take w/in the opportunities and constraints of history and social circumstances ● Human agency: use of personal power to achieve one’s goals ○ 3 modes: ■ Personal agency- use of personal power ■ Proxy agency- actions of some on behalf of others ■ Collective agency- accomplished through group action ● Cultural variations in the relative- emphasis put on the different modes ● Disjoint agency- agency resides in the independent self ○ Individualistic societies ● Conjoint agency- agency resides in relationships between independent selves ○ Collectivist societies ● Individuals’ choices are constrained by the structural and cultural arrangements of a given historical era

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But, individuals can be resourceful and resilient in making the choices available to them viable

Major Themes of the Life Course Perspective: Diversity in Life Course Trajectories ● Differences in life course trajectories as a result of ○ Cohort variations ○ Social class ○ Culture ○ Gender ○ Individual agency ● Intersectionality theory- all of us are jointly and simultaneously members of multiple socially constructed identity groups ○ Ex: gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, age, religion, geographical location, disability/ability ● Immigration ○ Complexity of the migration process adds layers to gender, race, social class, and age diversity issue ○ Family roles often have to be renegotiated as children learn the new language faster than older family members ○ Tensions can develop over conflicting approaches to the acculturation process Major Themes of the Life Course Perspective: Developmental Risk and Protection ● Concepts of cumulative advantage and cumulative disadvantage explain inequality w/in cohorts and are socially constructed ○ Cumulative advantage: mechanisms that ensure increasing advantage for those who succeed early in life ■ Live in the right neighborhood, go to the right school, etc ○ Cumulative disadvantage: increasing disadvantage for those who struggle early in life ■ Not having a good childhood, not having money, etc ● Privilege- trajectory of unearned advantage ● Oppression- intentional or unintentional act or process of placing restrictions on an individual, group, or institution ● Highlights the strong links between the life events and transitions of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood ○ Childhood can shape people’s lives 40 or 50 years later...