Handbook of the Life Course

Mortimer (sociology, U. of Minnesota) and Shanahan (sociology, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) present a handbook that overviews the theoretical perspectives, concepts, and methodological approaches that animate life course studies in social psychology. Thirty-four chapters are organized into sections that discuss variability in life course across historical and cross-national settings, normative age-grading of the life course as reflective of social structures, the way life courses reflect social institutions, and individual-level processes of motivation in the life course. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).