Richard A. Settersten

Some Ways in Which Neighborhoods, Nuclear Families, Friendship Groups, and Schools Jointly Affect Changes in Early Adolescent Development.

This study assessed some ways in which schools, neighborhoods, nuclear families, and friendship groups jointly contribute to positive change during early adolescence. For each context, existing theory was used to develop a multiattribute index that should promote successful development. Descriptive analyses showed that the four resulting context indices were only modestly intercorrelated at the individual student level (N = 12,398), but clustered more tightly at the school and neighborhood levels (N = 23 and 151 respectively). Only for aggregated units did knowing the developmental capacity of any one context strongly predict the corresponding capacity of the other contexts. Analyses also revealed that each context facilitated individual change in a success index that tapped into student academic performance, mental health, and social behavior. However, individual context effects were only modest in size over the 19 months studied and did not vary much by context. The joint influence of all four contexts was cumulatively large, however, and because it was generally additive in form, no constellation of contexts was identified whose total effect reliably surpassed the sum of its individual context main effects. These results suggest that achieving significant population changes in multidimensional student growth during early adolescence most likely requires both theory and interventions that are explicitly pan-contextual.

Growing Up is Harder to do

In the past several decades, a new life stage has emerged: early adulthood. No longer adolescents, but not yet ready to assume the full responsibilities of an adult, many young people are caught between needing to learn advanced job skills and depending on their family to support them during the transition.

Age Structuring and the Rhythm of the Life Course

Age is important from the perspectives of societies, groups, and individuals. For societies, the meanings and uses of age are often formal. For example, age underlies the organization of family, educational, work, and leisure institutions and organizations. Many laws and policies structure rights, responsibilities, and entitlements on the basis of age, whether through explicit age-related rules or implicit judgments about the nature of particular life periods. At the same time, members of a society, or large subgroups of the population, may share informal ideas about the changes that occur between birth and death, and how these changes are significant. For example, age may be tied to common notions about appropriate behavior or the proper timing and progression of experiences and roles.

The Salience of Age in the Life Course

This article outlines several emerging debates on the salience of age in the life course. A set of recent data, based on interviews with a random sample of 319 adults in the Chicago metropolitan area,

When Nations Call How Wartime Military Service Matters for the Life Course and Aging

Most scholarship on aging is based on cohorts born early in the 20th century, and these cohorts have had significant experience with war. Wartime experiences may therefore be critical but largely hidden variables underlying current scientific knowledge about aging. Evidence marshaled in this article illustrates the powerful insights gained when research on this topic is guided by lifecourse propositions and data. It reveals how wartime military service, especially during World War II, affected the short- and long-ranging development of recruits. It also highlights the need to better account for the potential legacies of service for physical, psychological, and social functioning in late life. These matters will become increasingly important as sizable World War II and Korean veteran populations move through advanced old age, and as the Vietnam veteran population moves into old age. Systematic attention to the effects of wartime service is necessary to determine the degree to which contemporary knowledge about aging can be generalized to future cohorts.

Time, Age, and the Transition to Retirement: New Evidence on Life-Course Flexibility?

The past twenty-five years have seen dramatic changes in the transition to retirement. This article considers an overlooked set of social processes—informal age structuring—within the context of these changes. Data are drawn from a random sample of 319 adults from the Chicago area. For about half of the respondents, age was considered an irrelevant dimension for both mens and womens retirement Those respondents who found age relevant cited deadlines that were clustered not only around the critical points at which researchers have observed regularity in retirement patterns, but they also included the lower junctures that are emerging as part of the shift toward earlier retirement. These deadlines most often marked the place of retirement relative to a larger set of work transitions, or they budgeted enough time to pursue developmental opportunities at the end of life. However, most respondents said there were no serious consequences for retiring late. Important patterns also emerged across the background characteristics of our respondents. These findings feed into several provocative debates that relate time and age to models of life-course flexibility or rigidity.

Toward a Stronger Partnership Between Life-Course Sociology and Life-Span Psychology

This article promotes a stronger partnership between life-course sociology and life-span psychology. Despite some common commitments and goals, the gulf between the two fields remains wide. This gulf is problematic if human development is to be seriously conceived as the interplay between species, social, and individual influences. This article discusses some of the challenges and potentials of bridging these fields, given the different domains and outcomes, levels of analysis, and explanatory factors on which they focus. It explores how these two fields might create a bigger shared toolbox of models, methods, and data. It also considers some of the ways in which disciplinary and age-based inquiry are reinforced in the social organization of science. As attention to the whole of life grows, it will become increasingly important to justify how particular life periods are conceptually autonomous from adjacent periods.This article promotes a stronger partnership between life-course sociology and life-span psychology. Despite some common commitments and goals, the gulf between the two fields remains wide. This gulf is problematic if human development is to be seriously conceived as the interplay between species, social, and individual influences. This article discusses some of the challenges and potentials of bridging these fields, given the different domains and outcomes, levels of analysis, and explanatory factors on which they focus. It explores how these two fields might create a bigger shared toolbox of models, methods, and data. It also considers some of the ways in which disciplinary and age-based inquiry are reinforced in the social organization of science. As attention to the whole of life grows, it will become increasingly important to justify how particular life periods are conceptually autonomous from adjacent periods.

Military Service, the Life Course, and Aging: An Introduction

Most scholarship on aging is based on cohorts born in the first few decades of the 20th century. Members of these cohorts have had significant exposure to war and significant military histories. Much remains to be learned about how wartime experiences have affected the lives of veterans and their families in the short and long terms. These matters will become increasingly important worldwide as large populations of war veterans move through old age and advanced old age. Wartime experiences may be important but largely invisible factors underneath contemporary knowledge of aging. Attention to these factors is necessary to assess the degree to which current knowledge can be generalized to future cohorts and to respond to the needs of aged veterans and their families. Research on the effects of military service on the life course and aging is not only relevant to cohorts now in late life but will also offer insights into some of the potential consequences of service for men and women now serving in conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the globe. The six articles in this special issue use life-course principles to frame and explore the effects of early military service, especially during wartime, on outcomes in late life. The research represented in these articles targets a range of outcomes, some of the processes and mechanisms that produce them, and some of the consequences they bring for individuals, families, and societies. The opening article, “When Nations Call: How Wartime Military Service Matters for the Life Course and Aging,” provides a comprehensive review and critique of the current knowledge base, elaborating what we know about the social, psychological, and physical outcomes of wartime service and outlining an agenda to bring military service front and center in scholarship on aging.