Understanding the Life Course: Sociological and Psychological Perspectives

Green, Lorraine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745697933 ISBN 13: 9780745697932

Publisher: Polity Press, 2016

Understanding the Life Course provides a uniquely comprehensive guide to the entire life course from an interdisciplinary perspective. Combining important insights from sociology and psychology, the book presents the concept's theoretical underpinnings in an accessible style, supported by real-life examples. From birth and becoming a parent, to death and grieving for the loss of others, Lorraine Green explores all stages of the life course through key research studies and theories, in conjunction with issues of social inequality and critical examination of lay viewpoints. She highlights the many ways the life course can be interpreted, including themes of linearity and multidirectionality, continuity and discontinuity, and the interplay between nature and nurture. The second edition updates key data and includes additional material on topics such as new technologies, changing markers of transitions to adulthood, active ageing, resilience and neuropsychology. This comprehensive approach will continue to be essential reading for students on vocational programmes such as social work and nursing, and will provide thought-provoking insight into the wider contexts of the life course for students of psychology and sociology.

Review:

"It is excellent to have this second edition of Understanding the Life Course. It is thoroughly updated and Lorraine Green has continued to provide us with a text which is both ambitious and very readable. It will be invaluable to a range of students on both academic and professional courses who require an insightful and integrated sociological and psychological analysis of the life course."
Nigel Parton, University of Huddersfield

"A thorough understanding of the life course requires a strong grasp of both macro- and micro-social influences on our lives, ranging from major historical events to our most intimate family relationships. This excellent book is the only one I know of to put its interdisciplinary approach front and centre, underscoring the ways that psychological theories of identity and development, and sociological research on inequalities, shape the diversity of human experiences in childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. An original, engaging and informative book that will be well received across a range of social science disciplines."
Deborah Carr, Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University

"Lorraine Green has produced an outstanding second version of this successful and wide-ranging book. Retaining the sophistication and accessibility of the first edition, she has carefully updated material, including new nuanced analyses of the concept of resilience and neuro-developmental understandings."
Sue White, Professor of Social Work, University of Birmingham

About the Author:

Lorraine Green is an independent social sciences and social work consultant, formerly of the Universities of Manchester and Nottingham