[An introduction paragraph here talking about the life course and briefly what it is and that what follows is Glen Elder’s early to mid life as a Life-Course journey]
Formative Early Themes [Chart]
Parental Influences
Social Change In
Life Experience
College & Graduate School
The Berkeley Years
Mother’s Life & Biographical Perspective
1905-1998 / Urban Child / Married in ‘32 / 2 sons [Photo]
Worklife – English literature teacher, H.S.; Girls’ basketball coach
Community – leadership in fine arts, church
• Avid reader of historical biographies
Father’s Influence: Doing Big Things
1901-63 / Farm Childhood / College graduate [Photo]
Career sequence:
coach —> medical career —> farmer
Thrived on doing “innovative things”
Agentic role model
Life-Shaping Changes [Timeline]
1929-41
The Great Depression (Cleveland, Ohio)
1934 Birth of Glen Elder
1941-45
World War II, War & Homefront
1949 – Family move to Pennsylvania farm
Higher Education And Life Transitions [perhaps another Timeline]
To Penn State – From Agriculture to Social Psychology (1952-57)
Dean of Men’s Staff, Kent State University (1957-58)
MA Thesis, Kent State – on “Transition to College.” Used “recalled events, influences.”
A Carolina Ph.D. and Serendipity [Photo – caption???]
• Thinking of “young lives” while using survey data.
• Exposure to developmental study monographs in UNC library.
• Meeting new Berkeley Institute Director John Clausen, who offered a job at Berkeley.
Studying People Over Time – The Berkeley Experience
• Oakland Growth, Ss born 1920-21, N=185. Director, Harold Jones.
• Berkeley Study, Ss born 1928-29, N=212.
• Both studies were collecting data by 1930-31
[Photo Main Gate – University of California- Berkeley ]
Discovering the Oakland Archives [Photo???]
• Data collection – parent interviews, peer and staff observations, Ss reports.
• Serendipity again! Evidence of “ongoing family change” – from 1929 to 1933 income.
• Qualitative data materials. Enabled “recoding.” Can address new questions!
Thinking About Lives
- Variation in timing and effect of life events and social roles – psychologist B. Neugarten, 1950s. Life cycle of generations and socialization.
- Birth cohorts as a population perspective on social change and life patterns – demographer Norm Ryder (1965).
- A survey codebook on pathways – through life, work, family, leisure. Saw how lives might be represented.
What Perspective?
The Life Course Framework: Its Research Traditions, 1960s
Person [Chart] [Photo]
Life-span Concepts of Development
Life Context
Social Roles and Age and Relationships Temporality
Linking Career to Emerging Field ─ Life Course Studies
• Career – Studying Lives in Changing Times, 1962 – .
• 1st job at UC-Berkeley (‘62) on studies of people over time.
• Emerging field of longitudinal and life course studies.
[How much to include on this particular page and if any of the bold heads need more explanation]