Questions that apply to all articles

In the life course perspective, in what ways do individual behaviors influence a person’s bio-psycho-social development?

According to the life course perspective, why do people react differently to life stressors?

Chen, X. (2009). The Linkage Between Deviant Lifestyles and Victimization: An Examination From a Life Course Perspective. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 24(7):1083–1110

A small but growing body of research has demonstrated the merits of linking victimization to a life course perspective. Although cross-sectional studies have shown a strong association between deviant lifestyles and victimization, few have assessed this association from the life course perspective. Drawing data from a prospective, longitudinal study, the current study examines this association in a group of high school adolescents. Results from latent growth curve models show that (a) victimization and deviant lifestyles, measured as involvement in delinquent activities, affiliation with deviant peers, and time spent on unsupervised activities change over time; and (b) change in deviant lifestyle patterns leads to change in victimization patterns over time.

• How does the Life Course Perspective explain the association between deviant lifestyle and victimization?

Hser, Y., Longshore, D., & Anglin, M. D. (2007). The Life Course Perspective on Drug Use: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Drug Use Trajectories. Evaluation Review. 31(6):515–547

This article discusses the life course perspective on drug use, including conceptual and analytic issues involved in developing the life course framework to explain how drug use trajectories develop during an individual's lifetime and how this knowledge can guide new research and approaches to management of drug dependence. Central concepts include trajectories marked by transitions and social capital and turning points influencing changes. The life course perspective offers an organizing framework for classifying varying drug use trajectories, identifying critical events and factors contributing to the persistence or change in drug use, analytically ordering events that occur during the life span, and determining contributory relationships.

• Based on the Life Course Perspective, how would you alter drug use trajectories?

Lay, B., Ihle, W., Esser, G., Schmit, M. H. (2005). Juvenile-Episodic, Continued or Adult-Onset Delinquency? Risk Conditions Analysed in a Cohort of Children Followed Up to the Age of 25 Years. European Journal of Criminology. 2(1): 39–66.

This paper reports findings from a prospective study of a cohort of 321 eight-year old children followed up to the age of 25 years. By examining officially recorded and self-reported delinquent behaviors, the present analysis aimed to distinguish three types of life course: episodic juvenile delinquency; continued juvenile delinquency up to adulthood; and late-starting delinquency in early adulthood. The analysis identifies a variety of risk factors, assessed in childhood and adolescence that increase the likelihood of later delinquent behavior. Some of these risk factors are common to the three types of delinquency life course, but there are also risk constellations that are specific to the particular life-course types; these risk constellations differ in terms of the number and variety of risk factors, and in terms of the absolute and relative impact of particular risk factors.

• Which risk and protective factors influence juvenile delinquency?

Avison. W. R. (2010). Incorporating Children’s Lives into a Life Course Perspective on Stress and Mental Health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 51(4): 361-37.

Emerging themes in demography, developmental medicine, and psychiatry suggest that a comprehensive understanding of mental health across the life course requires that we incorporate the lives of children into our research. If we can learn more about the ways in which the stress process unfolds for children, we will gain important insights into the factors that influence initial set points of trajectories of mental health over the life course. This will simultaneously extend the scope of the stress process paradigm and elaborate the life course perspective on mental health. Incorporating children’s lives into the sociology of mental health will also extend the intellectual influence of the discipline on sociomedical and biomedical research on mental illness. I contend that sociology’s greatest promise in understanding trajectories of mental health across the life course lies in a systematic analysis of the social and social-psychological conditions of children, the stressful experiences that arise out of these conditions, and the processes that mediate and moderate the stress process in childhood. In this regard, there are three major issues that sociologists could begin to address: (1) the identification of structural and institutional factors that pattern children’s exposure to stress; (2) the construction of a stress universe for children; and (3) the identification of key elements of the life course perspective that may set or alter trajectories of mental health in childhood and adolescence.

• How does the Life Course Perspective explain mental health?