Abstract
A life course perspective prompts a decided shift in how sociologists have traditionally approached issues of schooling and educational attainment. The core assumption of life course theory—that developmental processes and outcomes are shaped by the life trajectories children follow—has increasingly focused attention on cultural differences and socioeconomic variation in school outcomes and redirected attention to the process of schooling. Children, like adults, are socially organized in ways that have strong implications for their life experiences, including those in school. A life course perspective makes it natural to think about life transitions as turning points, and about the social basis of change and continuity through the successive phases of life (see McLeod and Almazan, this volume).
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Entwisle, D.R., Alexander, K.L., Olson, L.S. (2003). The First-Grade Transition in Life Course Perspective. In: Mortimer, J.T., Shanahan, M.J. (eds) Handbook of the Life Course. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-48247-2_11
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