The life course perspective, an emerging interdisciplinary perspective, has potential for helping social workers bridge their micro and macro worlds. This article provides an overview of the empirical and theoretical roots of the life course perspective and its basic concepts and major themes. Five basic concepts are defined and discussed: cohorts, transitions, trajectories, life events, and turning points.Six major themes that are emerging from interdisciplinary research are examined: interplay of human lives and historical time, timing of lives, linked or interdependent lives, human agency in making choices, diversity in life course trajectories, and developmental risk and protection. Strengths and limitations of the perspective for use by social workers are discussed and connections are made to narrative approaches to practice.
In recent years, the life course perspective has received increasing support from researchers across a number of behavioral science disciplines. The purpose of this article is to examine the relevance to social work of selected findings of the last 15 years of empirical investigation of life course concepts and themes. This discussion is organized around five basic concepts (cohorts, transitions, trajectories, life events, and turning points) and six interrelated themes (interplay of human lives and historical time, timing of lives, linked or interdependent lives, human agency in making choices, diversity in life course trajectories, and developmental risk and protection). Implications of life course theory and research for social work are overviewed.
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