YOUTH, AGING, AND THE LIFE COURSE
The mission of the Division of Youth, Aging, and the Life Course (YALC) is to bring together students, scholars, practitioners, and activists who focus on a broad range of social problems related to youth, aging, and the life course. We consider all stages of the life course and how they interact, as well as the socially constructed nature of the life course and how it intersects with dimensions of social stratification and inequality. In relation to our mission, we aim to: (1) promote higher quality of life, social welfare, and social justice for persons of all ages, in all stages of the life course, in local, national, and global contexts; (2) provide resources specifically for graduate students and early-career social scientists; and (3) promote research and activism in order to inform and critically evaluate age- and life course-relevant social policies.
The Division of Youth, Aging, and the Life Course annually (co-)sponsors up to 10 sessions at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) along with a Graduate Student Paper Award Competition and the Maggie Kuhn Award for Scholar-Activists. Please visit our Facebook page and Twitter account for more information about YALC as well as up-to-date member news, announcements, and accomplishments.
Division mission statement reviewed in November 2023 by Brittney Miles, University of Illinois Urbana-Chicago, Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Division Chair, 2023-2025. No edits were made. Division mission statement reviewed in November 2022 by Julia Kay Wolf, The University of Texas at San Antonio, Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Division Chair, 2021-2023. No edits were made. Division mission statement edited in November 2021 by Julia Kay Wolf, The University of Texas at San Antonio, Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Division Chair, 2021-2023.
Some Readings:
Below we offer a list of important books and articles, which reflect (however imperfectly) the critical and expansive domain of members’ interests.
S. Arber and J. Ginn (eds.). 1995. Connecting Gender and Ageing.Buckingham: Open University Press.
P. Aries. 1962. Centuries of Childhood. N.Y.: Vintage.
V. L. Bengston and K. W. Schaie (eds.). 1999. Handbook of Theories of Aging. New York: Springer.
R. H. Binstock and L. George (eds.). 2006. Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences, 6th Ed. Boston: Academic Press.
T. M. Calasanti and K. F. Slevin. 2001. Gender, Social Inequalities and Aging. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
P. Chambers. 2005. Older Widows and the Life Course. Keele University, U.K.: Ashgate.
W. A. Corsaro. 1997. The Sociology of Childhood. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
J. M. Coyle (ed.) 1997. Handbook on Women and Aging. Westport, CT: Praeger.
D. Dannefer. 2003. ‘Cumulative Advantage/Disadvantage and the Life Course: Cross-
Fertilizing Age and Social Science Theory.” Journal of Gerontology: SOCIAL SCIENCES, Vol. 58B (6): S327-337.
D. Dannefer. 1987. “Aging as Intracohort Differentiation: Accentuation, the Matthew Effect, and the Life Course.” Sociological Forum, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring): 211-236
T. Diamond. 1992. Making Gray Gold: Narratives of Nursing Home Care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
D. Eder. 2003. School Talk: Gender and Adolscent Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
C. L. Estes & Associates. 2001. Social Policy & Aging. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
C. L. Estes. 1979. The Aging Enterprise. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass.
G.A. Fine. 1987. With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
J. Z. Giele and G. H. Elder. 1998. Methods of Life Course Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
J. Z. Giele and E. Holst (eds.) 2004.Changing Life Patterns in Industrial Societies. Boston: Elsevier.
J.F. Gubrium. 1993. Speaking of Life: Horizons of Meaning for Nursing Home Residents. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
T. H. Hareven. 1994. “Aging and Generational Relations: A Historical and Life Course Perspective” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 20:437-461
J.A. Holstein and J.F. Gubrium. 2000. Constructing the Life Course. Lanham,MD: General Hall.
S. Hunter and M. Sundel. 1989. Midlife Myths: Issues, Findings and Practice Implications. Newbury Park: Sage.
S. Katz. 1996. Disciplining Old Age. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.
S. R. Kaufman. 1986. The Ageless Self. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
A. Lareau. 2003. Unequal Childhoods. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
J. Mortimer and M. Shanahan (eds). 2004. Handbook of the Life Course Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
M.H. Meyer. 2000. Care Work: Gender, Labor, and the Welfare State. New York: Routledge.
B. Myerhoff. 1978. Number Our Days. New York: Touchstone.
B. L. Neugarten. 1996. The Meanings of Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
K. S. Newman. 2003. A Different Shade of Gray: Midlife and Beyond in the Inner-City. New York: The New Press.
M. Pitt-Catsouphes, E. E. Kossek and S. Sweet (eds.) 2006. The Work and Family Handbook. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
J. Quadagno. 2008. Aging and the Life Course (4th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
J. Quadagno and D. Street (eds.). 1996. Aging for the Twenty-First Century: Readings in Social Gerontology. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
M. W. Riley. 1988. “On the Significance of Age in Sociology.” Pp. 24-25 in (M.W. Riley, ed.) Social Structures and Human Lives. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
D. M. Rodgers. 2020. Children in Social Movements: Rethinking Agency, Mobilization and Rights. London; New York: Routledge.
K. W. Schaie and G. H. Elder (eds.) Historical Influences on Lives & Aging (2005) N.Y.: Springer Pub.
J. S. Savishinsky. 2000. Breaking the Watch: Meanings of Retirement in America.
R. A. Settersten, F. F. Furstenberg Jr., and Ruben Rumbeaut (eds). On the Frontier of Adulthood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
R.A. Settersten (ed.). 2003. Invitation to the Life Course. Amityville, NY: Baywood.
R.A. Settersten. 1999. Lives in Time and Place. Amityville, NY: Baywood.
E. P. Stoller and R. C. Gibson (eds.). 2000. Worlds of Difference. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
B. Thorne. 1994. Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press.
R. S. Weiss. 2005. The Experience of Retirement. Ithaca, NY: ILR/Cornell University Press.
R. S. Weiss and S. A. Bass (eds.). 2002. Challenges of the Third Age. New York: Oxford.
C. Wellin. 2010. “Growing Pains in the Sociology of Aging and the Life Course: A Review Essay on Recent Textbooks.” Teaching Sociology, Vol. 38, No. 4: 373-382.
(Compiled by Carolyn Perucci & Chris Wellin)
