Opportunity and Uncertainty: Life Course Experiences of the Class of '73 - Softcover

Anisef, Paul; Axelrod, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802083641 ISBN 13: 9780802083647

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2000

Synopsis

Based on the longest running panel study of its kind in Canada, this book examines events in the lives of a generation of Ontario residents who graduated from grade twelve in 1973. The study recreates the world of the early 1970s in which these high school students faced the future. It recounts their educational and occupational experiences in the late 1970s, follows their vocational and career pathways during the subsequent decade, and searches for patterns in their personal and family lives through the late 1980s and early 1990s. By painting a portrait of a little-known cohort, this interdisciplinary project provides a wealth of information about the links between schooling and employment in a time of economic instability and addresses the different ways in which women and men attempt to reconcile familial and occupational demands.

The study employs life course theory, which explores the dynamic relationship between the individual and the social order. Structural forces such as social class, gender, ethnicity, and race played an unmistakable role in the lives of the Class of '73. So, too, did human agency. Using survey research, historical documentation, in-depth interviews, and personal biographies, the authors seek to explain one generation's emergence from adolescence into adulthood in an era characterised by both opportunity and uncertainty.

About this title

About the Authors

Paul Anisef is a professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology at York University.

Paul Axelrod is a Professor at York University.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802083641
• ISBN 13: 9780802083647
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368